Tales of Plit
by mewmaster93
Summary: A Clash of the Elements spin-off. This story is actually a compilation of tales focusing on key Mario series characters both classic and original from the previous parts of Clash of the Elements as they deal with various issues past the aftermath of Part 3. A new tale will be added every time I finish another arc in Part 4, so stay tuned fellow readers!
1. Driad Chapter 1

**Driad I: Coping With a Loss**

The skies were filled with joyous cheers and victorious whistling, as citizens all across the planet Plit celebrated their return from non-existence at the hands of the mighty leviathan "Shattered Reality". Many people did not know just who was behind their return, and if they assumed the Elemental Overlord Mewmaster they would only be partially correct. Still, to be alive again is something that didn't need to be questioned no matter how strange the circumstances were, especially when just moments before their erasure everyone was gripped by fear and paranoia. The town with the biggest cheers though was the place where the event began, the town of Toads called…Well, "Toad Town." There, streamers flew across the sky alongside the rain of confetti, and the sounds of whistling and good cheer were joined by thunderous claps of happiness.

Amidst the crowd of Toads was someone whose appearance couldn't be anymore different from the rest. His name was Driad, and he was a Crayzee Dayzee whose body was composed mostly of vines and moss to differentiate himself from the rest of his "kind". I use the term loosely there because as has been revealed to most the citizens here today, Driad was once one of the Elemental Overlord's outer guardians until a single defeat robbed him of his true form and gave him amnesia for a good thousand years. It would take far too long to explain just how he regained his memories while also mentioning how he came to live in this town, but rest assured some tidbits will be spread about this tale just as they will be for the rest of the protagonists we focus on…

Anyways, to make a long story short, Driad came to live with the planet's two most famous heroes, Mario and Luigi, and a year ago he was joined in these accommodations by the first new Elemental Overlord…That period of time is being mentioned because, as it should be known, the one called Alex Whiter perished in combat a year ago, leaving Driad both angered and the feeling of abandonment looming inside of his mind…At least until just a couple days ago, when the clone of Alex Whiter, the aforementioned Mewmaster, came to this world. After helping to quell his innermost demons, Mew vowed to Driad that when all was said and done with the current threat, he would return safe and sound and along with the Mario Bros. they would be a happy if sometimes dysfunctional family.

And as of the current moment, that was what the young in appearance Crayzee Dayzee was waiting for. His head was reared up in eager anticipation as his eyes glistened in the face of the sunlight and a smile widened across his face. While most planets don't have a heart, Driad, being one of the few notable exceptions, felt his pounding against his chest in eager anticipation. The young flower hadn't actually seen eye or ear of his other colleagues since they had returned from non-existence, but he figured that they would seek him out once the celebration had died down a bit. After a few minutes of standing in the center of the ever-moving crowd with his eyes looking up towards the sky without so much as anything changing besides the Light Citadel vanishing from above, Driad starts to become a little worried, and his face becomes slightly more uneasy in expression.

However, unbeknownst to the living flower, someone was pushing his way through the crowd at that very moment to deliver news about the person Driad was waiting for. His voice barely makes its way through the cheering crowd for the first few seconds, but when he is within twenty feet of the Crayzee Dayzee Driad begins to hear the gruff, polite sounding "Pardon me…" being repeated over and over again and quickly averts his gaze from the sky to turn to the right and see just who is coming his way through the crowd. Though only the person's head can be seen at first, its more than enough to begin describing just who said person was. His name is Gemini, a yellow-shelled turtle creature called a Koopa who happens to wear a red scarf around his left arm. Both of his eyes are purple, but save for that there really isn't anything important to note about his appearance…Yet.

After wading through the crowds of Toads, Gemini catches his footing on the one barren piece of ground beside Driad and balances himself up straight before folding his arms in front of his chest as he waited for the Crayzee Dayzee to turn himself all the way and face him before speaking. "What's up Gemini?" The living flower spoke with confused familiarity towards his friend, and after the Koopa lets out a light cough on reflex due to a bit of dust going into his throat Gemini says to Driad "Alpha just got off the intercom with Mew…He is heading back to Mario's house right now and asked us all to meet up there to celebrate. I came looking for you since you were the last person we needed to round up and considering you are barely as tall as these Toads…" Feeling a bit embarrassed to comment on Driad's height like that, Gemini lets his sentence fizzle out quickly before waving his hand towards his body and turning to the side.

"Come on, lets get a move on while we have room to walk…" And thus with Driad's smile returning, he allows himself to be guided across Toad Town by the good-natured Gemini until the two of them reach the green pipe that leads back to Mario's house. After asking a few partying Toads to scoot aside so they can jump in, the two take a swift trip through a unexplainable dimension until they are shot out the other side with their feet pointed towards the lip of the pipe. They leap out onto the ground and find the other heroes standing in front of the house completely still, with only the red and blue overall wearing plumber that you should know by now to be Mario glancing over his shoulder to see the two heroes arriving.

Driad immediately notices two things off with the scene, and questions the most glaring one first by asking to the red garbed plumber "Hey, what happened to Geno?" To give a brief explanation, Geno is the herald of the Star Spirits who mostly exists as a miniature star body unless he possesses the body of a wooden doll that bears the name Geno. There will be more details on him later, but for now the most important thing to note is that though the star herald had been forcibly tasked to watch over the planet while the Star Spirits are on probation, he was asked to join the fight against the reality bender because of how high the stakes were. But now he was gone, and Driad would quickly find out why from Gemini…

"Geno had to get back to the Star Haven…Something about an urgent affair from those 'higher-ups' that he mentioned when he came down earlier today…He offered his deepest apologies that he wasn't able to talk to you though, Driad." The Crayzee Dayzee merely shrugged his shoulders towards Geno's apology, for he didn't really consider it that much of a reason to start feeling down seeing as the star herald would be able to freely leave Star Haven in a few due months. He was far too busy feeling happiness over the fact that he would be seeing Mew again soon enough, and he thought that nothing would break this joy of his…And things would have stayed that way, had the mechanically armed Goomba named Alpha hadn't pointed out "Curious…My intercom device is getting a lot of static, and Mew hasn't showed up despite having a decent lead on all of us…"

Driad didn't take the comment seriously at first, especially since it couldn't have been possible for Mew to have been killed if he had just communicated with Alpha, but after a few seconds of waiting patiently the living flower started to grow concerned for his "brother", especially as his expression became sadder and his eyelids sank in fear for Mew's situation. Gemini took notice of this, and as Driad turned around the Koopa glanced to the left and said to the living flower "Hey Driad…You alright there?" The Crayzee Dayzee looks up towards the sky with his head shaking back and forth while the rest of the heroes turn around upon hearing Gemini express concern towards their flowery friends, and with a melancholy vibe suddenly dropping upon the heroes Driad says to them all "No…I'm not…" With his smile swiftly becoming a frown, the living flower says "Something…Something happened to Mew…He's just…Gone."

_**Three months later…**_

Things have quieted down for the most part in the Mushroom Kingdom since the defeat of the reality bender. Any minor repairs to the buildings in Toad Town have been completed, and save for the occasional "Bowser kidnaps Peach" situation nothing really terrible has occurred across the planet. But alas, for all the peace this world has earned, there is still one question that hasn't been answered for a particular Crayzee Dayzee since that fateful day three months ago…No one has heard eye of ear of Mewmaster, and even Alpha's thorough searches have come up with not even a hint of his presence discovered across the vast landscapes of Plit. Ever since the end of the first month since his disappearance, Driad has completely given up on trying to find Mew, and has chosen to seclude himself from most of the world by resting his body against the side of Mario's house, his arms and legs compressed into his body as he refuses to communicate with anyone who happens to try and speak to him.

Though he doesn't eat solid food at all, he manages to survive thanks to the sunlight and periodical rainfall that flies by the house, though his petals sometimes wilt during the night. In a way, Driad became a flower to the core, his body remaining motionless as roots grew from his legs and planted him into the ground so he can absorb nutrients to keep himself alive beyond what the sunlight and rain can give him. He doesn't sleep, he just continues to stay awake with his eyelids creaked slightly open and a dark blue tint forming below his eyes from a lack of rest. Everyone knew just why the Crayzee Dayzee refused to move from his spot, but no one had the guts to try and even approach and stop his depression.

That is, until one particular day, when upon returning home with a couple sacks of groceries wrapped in his arms, Luigi peered to the left to check up on the saddened little flower, and found that a series of cobwebs had started to form between his legs and the ground. With a naturally disconcerted arching of his eyebrows, the man in green walked into his household and placed the bags down on the groceries nearby table before walking over to the living room and finding Mario sitting down on the couch with a normal, laid back expression on his face as he watched the news unfold on the TV in front of him. "Mario, what are we gonna do about Driad?" Luigi quickly yet embarrassingly asked his brother to grab his attention.

The plumber garbed in red glanced to the right to assure his brother that he heard what was said, and with an outstretched right hand Mario clicked down on the power button of the remote in front of him to shut the TV off so no outside noise distracted him as he rose to his feet and turned towards Luigi with his expression taking on a more serious nature as he blinked his eyelids twice and shrugged his shoulders to say "I honestly don't know at this point…" In as honest of a tone as he can muster. Luigi gestures concernedly with his right hand, saying to his brother "What do you mean by that exactly?" "Well lets be honest here Luigi…Driad's depression stems from something we can't find a solution for, and that's Mew's sudden disappearance three months back."

"Oh yeah…" Luigi had actually forgotten about that since while it was concerning it wasn't the most important thing on his mind for the last week or so. After tapping his fingers against his chin and murmuring for a moment, the man in green's eyelids widen and he snaps his fingers before asking his brother "Say, did the Star Spirits ever get back to you or Alpha about Mew's whereabouts?" Mario shook his head twice in response. "No, they said they weren't allowed to talk about anything like that right after we asked the question…With or without their probation." "So what you are saying is…" Luigi said with a bit of hesitation, and Mario interrupts by nodding his head once and stating with a gesture of his left hand "Driad is going to have to deal with his emotions on his own. We've done everything we can to help him out as is…"

"Hmm…" Luigi hums in a melancholy tone as he glances to the right for a moment and wanders into thought for a few moments, after which he turns back to Mario and tells him "I'm going to try talking to him." Mario nudges his right eyebrow, already thinking that such an idea was not advisable until the man in green points out with a slight smile on his face "Hey, it can't hurt, can it?" Mario agrees after a brief moment of hesitation, and as Luigi turns around and waves his brother off the red garbed plumber asks "But wait, aren't you supposed to head off to Sarassaland today to meet Daisy?" "Yeah, but she'll understand if I'm a few minutes late because I decided to help a friend out. Catch you later bro, and keep the house clean while I'm gone alright?"

With a fond farewell shared between both brothers, Luigi left the house and began to move towards the right side where Driad was still seen sitting down with a depressed gleam in his eyes and a bit of rot visible on his arms as the man in green slowly approached the Crayzee Dayzee. A bit nervous to speak to the living flower after it had been months since he secluded himself from the rest of life to the side of their house, Luigi hesitantly raises his left hand into the air before retracting it upon thinking that he didn't really know what to say nor did he know if Driad would even react beyond a creaking turn of his head. Would he even be able to speak since his mouth had been sealed all this time? The man in green felt he didn't quite know enough about a Crayzee Dayzee's biology to determine how his friend would behave upon speaking to him…

But after a few moments of having doubts, Luigi sighs and decides to proceed onward with his original plan. Raising his right hand into the air, the man in green tries to quietly grab Driad's attention by saying to him "Driad…Hey buddy, can you hear me?" The most important thing to do at first was to grab the flower's attention, which appeared to work in the man in green's favor as over the span of ten seconds Driad slowly creaked his head to the left to look at Luigi, his eyes dreary and limp as he hides his mouth behind his folding arms and glares into the man in green's face. "…I guess that's a yes." He then says. "Are you willing to listen to me for a bit?" He then inquires, and the fact that Driad doesn't immediately turn away signifies that he wants to hear Luigi out.

"Its about your depression involving Mew's disappearance…" The Crayzee Dayzee swiftly turns his head back forward right away even though it pains his neck to do so, giving Luigi a huge hint that he really doesn't want to hear anything related to Mew still. "Driad, unless you want to break off from your current position, then you really don't have a choice but to hear me…I'm trying to help you, please understand that." And as Driad glances to the right in an attempt to ignore the man in green as he talked, the living flower couldn't help but think and realize that he had to listen to Luigi talk. So, for the first times in months, the man in green hears Driad speaks in a raspy, dried up tone "…Go on ahead, Luigi." And with a hint of a smile appearing on the man in green's face, Luigi gestures and says "Thank you" to his friend.

"Look, I understand that you are depressed over the fact that Mew disappeared, but you can't just keep sitting around our house doing nothing…" Driad looks to the left while keeping his head down to mope after hearing Luigi out a bit, saying to him in response "…And why should I do that exactly?" The man in green paused for a moment, turning his head towards the house to think about that question for a bit, and it turns out that the answer he is looking for relates to the thing he is looking at, and he quickly looks back at Driad and snaps his finger once to signify his revelation. "Well think about for a moment…Sticking around this place for so long has more than likely given you bad memories of your short time with Mew, right?"

Driad's eyes widen in shock for a moment, as he actually finds a bit of truth in what Luigi has told him, and with a more attentive turn of his head the living flower looks at the man in green as he smiles and continues speaking "If anything, you would be wise to go walk around outside the range of our house or something more proactive than sitting around where the harshest memories plague you." With his polite idea spoken in full, the man in green turns around and pokes his head over his right shoulder to crack another smile at Driad and say to him "Just think about it, alright?" Before he looks forward and continues on his way so he can head off to Sarassaland for a good week or so, and the living flower is left to consider Luigi's words.

And really, it didn't take long for Driad to think about them. With his head creaked back to look towards the house the Crayzee Dayzee realizes how correct Luigi was in his assessment on his own depression. In fact, as the flower looked towards the front of the house, he quickly saw a phantasmal image of him and Mew walking into the house while laughing about something they were discussing. It wasn't a memory he was having, but rather a moment he was thinking would occur in the present day had the young Overlord been with him now. The man in green couldn't be more right about his mental state in connection to this household, and it would truly be better for him to leave this place for the time being in order to clear his head of these negative thoughts.

But first, Driad would have to remove himself from his current position, something that he hadn't done for the last two months. His body was at the very least easily made loose by an exertion of his mind, but the roots that grew out from his legs and the cobwebs would be another story entirely. The living flower grunts and pulls himself upward, his vine hands pressing against the ground beside him on both sides as he lets out a strained, prolonged grunt from between his grit teeth. It takes all of his might to even begin budging from his location, with the roots not even giving an inch at first until thirty seconds have passed, at which point the roots start to obey the will of their once again mobile master and weaken their structures to make it easier to Driad to break free of the ground he had been rooted to.

With one last push of his arms, Driad breaks all of the roots off of his legs and wobbles onto his feet, his body barely able to support his weight at first and nearly causing him to tumble forward onto his knees. To counteract his imbalance, the living flower tosses his vines into the ground on both sides of his body and digs in to plant himself for a few seconds until his muscles re-adjust to his own weight and allow him to stand without any assistance. The Crayzee Dayzee takes a few deep breaths in to get used to the air around him through his mouth instead of his skin, and pulls his arms back into his body. He felt rather dizzy, but would recover over a brief span of time so long as he didn't go running towards the nearby pipe.

Despite how triumphant it was for him to conquer his rooted position, Driad didn't really feel any better about himself at the moment. He still had his lips curled into a frown, and his eyelids sank down to show his melancholy further. "…I guess I can head into town…Maybe E. Gadd can help me take my mind off of…Mew…" Trying his hardest to avoid letting that name slip from his mouth, Driad shivers and shakes his head simultaneously, his mind dropping the subject for the time being as he recovers from his dizziness and runs towards the pipe to travel through it and head into town, hopefully managing to get his mind off of Mew upon arriving there…

_Next Time: An Option to Consider_


	2. Driad Chapter 2

**Author's Note:**

I really, really, REALLY want to apologize for this upload taking 5 days. Its a combination of being rather busy in life lately, my hesitation towards writing certain parts of this chapter because I didn't want to screw up continuity or write Out-of-character moments, and an overall lack of focus towards writing this story in general over the first two days. Yeah, I didn't actually begin writing this chapter until like three days ago, mainly due to the fact that I wasn't even in range of a computer for a good while. I'm terribly sorry for the lateness of this chapter, and I promise things will be more fluent as far as uploads go once I get back to Part 4.

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**Driad II: Contemplation**

The living flower dully rose out of the pipe on the western end of Toad Town, his eyelids partially closed as a melancholy set of emotions hung high in his mind. He stepped down onto the ground, his vine arms curling backwards as he stood still for a few moments and took a look around town. The Toads that composed the entire population of this humble town walked about, taking care of their everyday business as only they were capable of doing with only a couple of them taking a moment to turn towards and wave at Driad without so much as an adverse reaction in regards to his slightly rotted demeanor. With his current attitude, the living flower felt no reason to wave back to anyone who gave him a good natured greeting, and he began to go along his way without so much as a word slipping between his lips.

As Driad went across down at a lethargic pace, he took the time to glance at the sights that he hadn't gazed at for the last couple of months just so he can familiarize himself with any possible changes since he was most recently here. The first place that the living flower took notice of was a small blue abode that was sealed off with wooden boards and designated with a "Construction Zone" warning label on all sides. Said house used to be a dojo owned by a crimson garbed Toad known only as "The Master" by those in this town. Sadly, it wasn't very long ago that "The Master" was confirmed to have died of old age at Star Haven, and though it wasn't believed by most those who received the news it was said by the Star Spirits that his body had been flung into the cosmos themselves, never to be seen again.

But as Driad looked towards the building, he thought nothing of the Toad who once owned the place, but rather he viewed the place with all the colors replaced with a foggy grayscale tint as he watched the one called Alex Whiter meet him on his way out of the dojo a year and few months back. The living flower remembers how cheerful he felt that day, and how all of his happiness was crushed within a few instances only hours later…Such grief and emotional pain thumping against the walls of his chest cause Driad to close his eyelids and shake his head as he looked away from the dojo and quickly dashed forward to escape the painful memories of his past. He ran for five seconds until he reached the center of town, and the citizens simply looked at him as though he was in a hurry instead of assuming that there was something wrong with him.

Once the living flower stops himself, he leans his head forward and plants his right vine against the nearest solid object for support as he catches his breath. He exerted more effort than one could imagine, especially considering how out of shape he was from a lack of movement these last two months. But after a few moments of focusing and regaining his ability to breathe normally, Driad slowly lifts his head up to see just what he is leaning against, and his eyes instantly widen in shock upon noticing that he is next to the golden statue of Alex Whiter that had been erected to honor his sacrifice against his evil doppelganger almost too long ago… "No…No…" Driad mutters in agony, for he cannot stop the memories that rush inside of his head once more for as long as he stares at the statue.

He tries to close his eyelids while turning his head away and planting his vines against the sides, but everything he tries to suppress merely appears in full at the backside of his eyelids, albeit rather blurred thanks to the struggle Driad has in an attempt to black out these painful images. "Just get out of my head…Just get out of my head!" The living flower yells out within the depths of his mind to no avail, and as he continues to fight back against his memories he opens his eyelids and with a panicked look on his face he glances around the area and finds that he has drawn the attention of the Toads. As happy laughter remembered from his time with Mewmaster echoes and dies down inside of his head at a slow pace, he turns his head around and finds himself disturbed by everyone's silence.

But amidst this silence, one Toad speaks out to him from the southwest side of his body. "Oy…Crayzee Dayzee…" Driad turns towards this voice as everyone slowly resumes their regular activities with only a few mentions made towards the living flower's strange behavior. The Toad in question is a gritty, badly dressed man with a sludge covered, saggy beard and a rotting cap on top of his head. His eyes can barely be seen through his dirty face, but what is clear and visible is the wooden sign he carries around with the words "The Apocalypse will come in time…" painted in red sloppily across the board. "Do you believe in the end times?" The Toad inquires towards Driad, his words having nothing to do with the emotional breakdown the living flower just had at first mention. With a panicked look fading from his eyes, Driad shakes his head twice in a rather slow manner, to which the gritty Toad replies with a muddy grin "How can you not believe that?"

"Our planet has been forsaken…Twice now has a God disappeared from our world, and our so called divine protectors refuse to communicate with us anymore…'Tis only a matter of time before our world comes to an end, until Ragnarok claims our very souls…" By the end of the Toad's rambling, Driad merely rolls his eyes and chooses to pay no more attention to the words of a deluded, dirty Toad as he turns his body and begins to walk away, only for the Toad to continue on without caring about his listener's lack of interest "Oh well, who gives a damn about those gods anyway…Those arrogant fools were nothing but trouble for the lot of us." With those fool heartedly chosen words, Driad pauses in place and his eyes widen briefly in anger as he slowly turns his head and continues to hear the Toad out.

"Hehehe…Think about it for a moment? Why do you think we mortals are warned time and time again about pursuing greater power? When you become a god, the first thing that is lost within the vast influx of power is your sense of justice…When you become more powerful than those around you, all you want to do is seek out and fight even stronger opponents…You don't care where their allegiance lies so long as you satiate your boredom…And what else would happen to disappear into the mists of the cosmos but your own humanity…After all, why should any god give an inkling of a shit towards even a single mortal when its impossible to relate to us anymore…In the end, gods are uncaring, arrogant beings who would never put others before them-"

Having heard enough from the Toad, Driad grits his teeth and quickly turns around to rush at the man with his right arm forming into the shape of a leaf blade, while his left vine wraps itself around the Toad's neck and hoists him into the air with the tip of his sword aimed at the center of the man's face. As the Toad finds his air circulation slowly being cut off by the tightening grip of Driad's arm, the living flower heaths in and out through his mouth while looking at the man with frenzied eyes before stating out of absolute fury towards the Toad "How dare you even speak about them as though you knew who they were and what they were like! Say another word about them and I'll cleave that head of yours right off!"

In the face of the Crayzee Dayzee's bold threat, the Toad merely laughs in a boastful tone as he looks down past the living flower and takes note of the crowd of his kin gasping in disbelief and fear at the violent actions that Driad was taking against him. "Hehehe…Y-You think you have any power over me, follower of the gods? You may not be a god yourself, but you are much stronger than any other 'mortal' on this world simply because of the blessing of the Star Spirits…And look where you are now, depriving yourself of what little humanity you had just to assault a man whose words you could have easily ignored…So go ahead and kill me just because I mocked your wretched masters, but if you do then what will happen to you next, hmm?" With his eyebrows raised in confidence as he gives Driad a plaque covered smile, the Crayzee Dayzee arches his eyebrows calmly and glares into the eyes of the Toad to intimidate him into thinking that his words would have no effect on him…

…Only to, in the end, loosen his grip on the Toad's neck and retract his sword rather reluctantly while he let out a tired sigh and with a light gesture he threw the man against the ground back first and turned away, his heavy eyes glaring into the disapproving expression on many Toads' faces as he turns to the right and slowly walks away without saying another word. The Toad, raising himself back onto his feet with a smile still on his face, begins laughing in a rather chilling tone as he picks up his sign and lumbers over behind the shade of a nearby tree, where with a slam of his pole against the ground beside himself he sheds his disguise and returns his staff back into its distorted, rattling skull topped form. "One down…Four to go…" He says in a mischievous tone of voice…

But this mysterious being is not the subject of our focus at the moment…We will return to his antics another day, but for now we shall return to where Driad is at as he scampers across the roads of Toad Town to find sanctity in E. Gadd's lab before he is hunted down for his assault on that grimy "Toad". At least, that's what paranoia was leading the Crayzee Dayzee to believe as he ran farther away from the center of town. He made a sharp turn to the right after a certain point and saw the steel covered building where E. Gadd took residence in when he wanted to work, and with only a quick glance back at the murmuring citizens Driad hurried down the stairs to find and hopefully know comfort at the hands of the stout old man.

In his haste though the Crayzee Dayzee failed to notice how misplaced his feet were as they moved back and forth across the steps, and a mistimed lowering of his right vine caused him to step down on empty air and his entire body fell forward in turn. He tumbled down the remaining half of stairs below and with his vision becoming dizzy from the forced whirling of the world around him, Driad cries out in pain as his head slams against the cold floor at the bottom of the steps and he rolls a few more feet before he crashes into the legs of a nearby table and knocks it over by complete accident, and despite the crashing of many glass beakers Driad is finally stopped as he is laid against his backside with his vision once again blurred by the lights above.

Naturally, all this commotion grabs the attention of this building's scientific occupant, who gently places one flask down into a holed segment of glass after a moment of flinching before he turns around and pops his glasses off with a nudge from his left hand. "Hmmm?" The wrinkled man named E. Gadd murmured to himself as he quickly looked towards the being responsible for the slight mess made to his lab and was surprised to discover that it was Driad. Having known the Crayzee Dayzee for his naivety instead of this display of clumsiness, the professor starts compiling a list of questions inside of his head while extending a hand out towards his friend and asking him "Are you all right there Driad?"

At first the inquiry is jumbled inside of Driad's ears, causing the Crayzee Dayzee to in turn mumble out a bewildered "H-Huh?" to which the stout scientist ends up repeating the question until Driad recovers and looks up at the professor's swirl-y glasses obscured face and says "P-Professor E. Gadd…" Lifting his head up to see just where he landed, Driad's face quickly becomes red with embarrassment and panic as he notices the mess he accidentally made and as he clambers to his feet he shakes his head and vine arms and apologizes profusely to the professor "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!" But the man merely takes it all in good favor and does his signature laugh to ease Driad's tension. "Its quite alright Driad…Though I am rather glad you struck the table that had all of the empty beakers…"

Gesturing with his right hand towards the easing Driad, E. Gadd's expression a mite more serious as he looks into the Crayzee Dayzee's black eyes and notices a rather dismal emotion coming from his expression, so seeing as he was at the moment acting as the concerned party, the professor asked his silent friend "What is on your mind, child?" Flinching momentarily as his gaze moves from the floor to E. Gadd's face, Driad quickly averts his gaze as he realizes how unsurprising it was that the professor quickly determined that something was wrong with him. After asking if E. Gadd had a lot of time on his hands to hear him out with the professor nodding in response, Driad began to talk about his current issues for a good ten minutes while E. Gadd stood and listened to try and comprehend all that was being said.

At the end of it, the professor makes a single comment that was only somewhat related to the matter at first "Well, that does explain why I hadn't seen you around lately…But still…" E. Gadd taps his fingers against the bottom of his chin and hums to himself for a few seconds before saying to Driad "So you are still depressed over Mew's disappearance and Alex's suicide, yet you keep painfully remembering them no matter where you go?" The Crayzee Dayzee nods his head to confirm to the professor that his short summary was accurate, and with a gesture of his right vine the living flower puts on a melancholy expression and asks E. Gadd "So what do you think I should do?" The professor quickly pinpointed just how emotionally drained Driad was from his current tone of voice, and to his best of knowledge the Crayzee Dayzee was looking to him as a last resort to solve his distress.

But alas, there was one major problem with Driad's thought process. With a shake of his head and a click of his tongue against the roof of his mouth, E. Gadd says to the living flower "Unfortunately, I didn't earn a Ph.D in Psychology, Driad…There's not much I can really do in the way of giving you a motivational speech that will snap you out of your depression…" The professor really loathed himself for having to be honest towards the Crayzee Dayzee after he went through the trouble of coming to find him, and as E. Gadd watches Driad hang his head and looking absolutely devastated the professor knew he simply couldn't let the conversation end right then and there.

With a nudge of his glasses to click them back into place, E. Gadd flicks his right fingers upward in front of his body to grab Driad's attention, and as the living flower raises his head back up to look at the professor with a disheartened glaze in his eyes E. Gadd said to him "Though if I can provide even an iota of assistance towards you, I would suggest heading out someplace secluded that has absolutely no relation to any of the memories you had with either Mew or Alex…Right now, this entire town is a field of poison for your mind, and I'm actually quite shocked that here of all places hasn't thrown you into madness…" With the Professor's well-thought out idea, Driad frowns slightly and says to him "Believe me, I'm trying really, REALLY hard to ignore the images flashing before my eyes…"

"…That's understandable Driad, and I'm really sorry you are experiencing all of this…You've gone through enough problems in your life since you regained your memories, and this is just another predicament that fate has left you to solve on your own…I know you will be fine though, just don't give up on yourself, alright?" "I won't professor…And thank you for helping in what little way you could…" With a somewhat lightened heart, Driad turned to his side and waved goodbye to E. Gadd as he headed back up the stairs, leaving the professor to start cleaning up the mess that was made behind him. The old man kneeled down and as he shuffled his hands across the shattered glass he made his way towards a picture frame that was cracked by the impact with the ground.

Lifting the frame up, E. Gadd's eyebrows slant as he takes note of the dusty picture that depicted himself alongside the rest of the planet's heroes, including the star herald Geno and the Elemental Overlord Alex Whiter, celebrating their victory against the one called Joe Dark a long time ago. Releasing a melancholy sigh, the professor says quietly to himself "If one of you were around right now…Perhaps then Driad would find some form of relief amidst his turmoil…" Wishing things were back to the way they were before despite how unheard his wishes would end up being, E. Gadd places the picture frame gently off to the side and vows to fix it later once he had cleaned the table and glass off of the floor.

Back with Driad, we find the melancholy flower wandering past the outskirts of Toad Town with his eyes staying focused on the grasslands instead of ever looking back towards the memories he had. He wanders far beyond the edge of town to find a place to collect his thoughts, and eventually he notices that he is climbing the side of a mountain. It wasn't exactly a conscious decision, since the Crayzee Dayzee's mind has become rather aloof in his thoughts. But seeing as he didn't recognize the place set before his eyes, he continues on his way and eventually makes it to the top, where he finds a cliff that is hanging out from the side over a large ravine that contains a gushing river and walks until he is six feet away from the edge. He looks out and sees nothing but the vast Desert Land and the southern edge of Grass Land beyond the other side of the ravine.

Feeling that this is the best place for him to gather his wits once more as he stands still and lets the cold mountain breeze brush against his flowery face, Driad closes his eyelids and sniffs the air in. But this simple little act manages to stir up another memory within the living flower's head, as he is reminded of the day where he learned the truth about his past and was subsequently told by Alex that he shouldn't think of himself as evil just because he used to be an outer guardian. "…Another painful memory…" The Crayzee Dayzee mutters out in depressed annoyance as he opens his eyelids and looks towards the sky, where the memories then continue to flow into him until he grimaces and looks down towards the desert.

But then the memories change from one to another, and now Driad remembers the time where he wandered through the deserts north of Moleville with Alex and the others by his side. The Crayzee Dayzee turns his head to the grasslands swiftly, but more memories flow into him without end. Not even out here, where his eyes gazed upon areas that he never traversed before with either Alex or Mew, was the living flower safe from the memories of the time he spent with them once before. This grim truth was spoken through Driad's lips as he slanted his eyebrows upward in sadness "I can't escape these memories, can I? I see them at home, in town, the environments…And even the very air itself…No matter where I go in this world, these memories will always be around, waiting to emerge and poison my mind…"

Driad raises his vine arms in front of his face and watches as they tremble involuntarily, murmuring to himself "How can I even function anymore when every waking second I'll be forced to endure these memories?" Curling his vines inward to stop the shaking, the Crayzee Dayzee lifts his head up slightly and frowns while looking over the edge of the cliff to checking out the violent rapids down below. His heart began to beat hard at a rather slow pace, the intensity of said beats increasing with each passing second as he inches closer and closer to the edge of the cliff. He sees a few rough, jagged spikes protruding out of the top of the water, and without so much as hesitation weighing him down the living flower began to contemplate something that he has never thought of before…Suicide.

"What better liberator is there than death?" Driad says with absolute certainty that what he was about to do is the right course of action. He was a being broken by the many lives he has seen be lost, and what was hurting him the most now was the memories of the two who provided him with the most happiness simply by existing before him with each passing day. But now they were both gone, and though there was a grave amount of uncertainty regarding Mew's whereabouts Driad was not a fool…Both him and Alex Whiter are dead, forever lost to the calming realm where the angels sing the last chorus for all who enter. "…Perhaps…Perhaps I'll be able to join you two…Its better that I end my life now…I'm too unstable to live anymore, and I'm pretty certain no one will care if I die here and now…They'll just forget me like they did everyone else…"

As Driad says what he believes to be his last words on this planet, he closes his eyelids and prepares to let gravity drag him down into the ravine and end his life without so much as a struggle. With his vine arms stretched out gently on both sides, the living flower was prepared to lean forward when a familiar voice calls out to him from above in the form of a resounding echo "That's not true Driad, that will never, ever be true…" Recognizing the voice with such familiarity that his eyelids open wide in utter disbelief when he realizes that its not something he was hearing in his memories, and with a swift turn of his body the Crayzee Dayzee watches as a beam of starry light thrusts itself down through the sky and lands on the ground a few feet away from him.

Descending from this beam of light as only a barely visible hologram at first is the wooden doll with the blue cloak that many known by the name of Geno. In a few more seconds, the star herald's body will manifest into a physical form through which he will be able to interact with the mortal world for the first time in what felt like an eternity to him. As Driad watches on, his eyes awe-struck while at the same time on the verge of joyous tears, he keeps his head pointed towards Geno's body until he lands on the ground and the beam of light dissipates into nothingness, at which point the Crayzee Dayzee finds himself at a complete loss for words. To compensate for that, the star herald creaks his wooden eyelids open and says in a comforting tone "Hey buddy, its been a while, hasn't it?"

_Next Time: A New Path_


	3. Driad Chapter 3

**Driad III: Down a New Road**

Its nearly impossible to describe just how agape Driad's mouth is at the moment as he looks towards Geno and wonders if the star herald is real. After all, considering how suicidal he was feeling at the moment, perhaps his subconscious chose to manifest a familiar being as an illusionary tactic to try and dissuade him from going through with his plan. But there was the fact that the wooden doll came forth from a beam of starry light, which was something that the real Geno was able to do. To his best of knowledge, a subconscious manifestation wouldn't be able to do that. With a nervous trembling of his right vine, Driad moved it forward across the air like a cautious serpent, and once the fibers touched those of Geno's skin the Crayzee Dayzee pulled back on his limb as his heart skipped a beat.

"Y-You are real…" Driad says, his mind taken aback as his suicidal thoughts are swept away momentarily to be replaced with abundant joy. With a smile cracked across his face, the Crayzee Dayzee dashes forth and presses the side of his head against Geno's chest while wrapping his arms as tightly around him as physically possible without getting his thorns into the wood itself. "I really missed seeing you around Geno…I'm glad one person showed up before I died…" With his conversation slipping towards the subject of what appears to him to be an inevitable suicide, Driad keeps his hug going as Geno's eyelids fold down in disappointment. "Driad…I'm glad to see you again too…And I'd really like to keep these meetings up as I had planned to before the higher-ups did what they did…But that's not going to happen if you commit suicide, so please reconsider what you are thinking of doing."

As Geno makes his intentions clear with that not so subtle sentence, Driad's eyelids creak open and his vines loosen around the wooden doll's body, and after a sharp raise of his head and an angered glare the Crayzee Dayzee pushes himself away from the star herald gently. With a turn of his body so neither of his eyes can even hope of glancing at Geno, Driad folds his arms in front of his chest and says in a melancholy, quiet tone "If you are trying to stop me from committing suicide, then leave now Geno…I'm my own person, and you can't force me to change my mind." The star herald finds Driad's words to be rather arrogant and not very thought out, especially considering how well he knows the personality of his friend. With a raise of his right hand and a calm gesture, Geno points out to the living flower "That's ludicrous Driad, I would never try and force you to change your mind against your will…"

Folding his arms back behind the cloth of his cloak, the star herald says with the utmost confidence in his words "However, I do believe that it isn't against my rights as a friend to try and hold a rational conversation with you in order to help solve your emotional distress so you don't end up going through with your suicide…Is it?" As Geno pops the grand question, Driad tilts his head to the right to glance over his shoulder and look at the star herald. After a few moments of hesitation, one of them spent glancing back at the ravine with his mind considering just jumping off only for his heart to grow heavy with guilt over the fact that he couldn't bear himself to do it while Geno was watching, the Crayzee Dayzee let out a reluctant sigh and said to his friend "Very well…But first, I have a question to ask…"

Turning to face his friend out of respect between the two of them, Driad slants his eyelids in suspicion and says "Just what are you doing here? I thought the higher-ups stopped you from coming down to the planet until the Star Spirit's suspension was done…" "Well that's rather easy to answer…" Geno says while drawing his right out with a swing of his arm to prevent that side of his cloak from getting in the way as he gestured. "The time limit has passed…It was actually a bit surprising when I heard the news, but since had been rather obedient about the whole matter the higher-ups decided to undo our suspension early…" "And then you decided to come to me…Why?" Driad interrupts with his right eyebrow raised. Geno chuckles and says to his friend "That's also rather easy to explain…"

"Driad, despite what you may believe, people besides me still care about you. Mario, Luigi and E. Gadd, just to name a few, wished that someone or something would help you with your depression since they didn't know just what to do themselves…I heard these wishes from the center of Star Haven, and ever since I heard them all I knew it would be up to me to help my old friend out…I kept observing you from above as much as I could, but saw that you were not budging from the side of Mario's house until just recently…Believe me when I say this, I didn't waste even a single second after the suspension was lifted to come down here, though I was quite surprised to find you standing above this ravine…"

"…So they do still care about me." Driad says in the form of a slow whisper once Geno had stopped talking, and with his body swiftly turned around to face the edge of the ravine once more he begins to walk towards it and says to his friend "Thank you for letting me know that Geno…When I'm dead, can you tell them all that I had my reasons for committing suicide?" "…Driad, stop trying to fool both me and yourself. You don't actually have any reasons to go this far." Geno, having quickly come to determine that Driad wasn't going to stop what he was doing, chose to drop the friendly act and be blunt in hopes of breaking through the Crayzee Dayzee's rough exterior and reach the rational person he once knew.

"And who are you to say th-" "Just because Alex is gone and Mew vanished doesn't mean that you should kill yourself over it…" Geno strikes Driad right through the heart and mind simultaneously with those piercing words, and the Crayzee Dayzee swiftly turns his body around without a single thought coursing through his head as he exclaims in subtle anger "That is NOT my reason for wanting to commit suicide…" "Do you take me for a fool Driad?" Geno replies with genuine disbelief in his voice towards the living flower's vapid attempt to trick one as wise as him. Against his better judgment, especially considering how not too long ago it has been since he was freed from his suspension, the star herald decided to reveal something important to his friend in order to turn his insistence against him.

"But let me go along with your comment just for the sake of my argument…You see, Mew isn't dead." As Geno creaks his eyelids open, he finds himself rushed at by Driad, who lashes his right vine around the doll's wooden form and suspends him in place above him with his other arm frantically turning into its blade form. Similar to earlier today, the Crayzee Dayzee's eyes are wide with madness, though this time he looks on the verge of tears as his sword arm trembles and he exclaims towards Geno in utter fury "I don't have the patience for this shit Geno…If you are messing with me, then I will cut your head right off! Now explain yourself!" The star herald stays calm, taking the brunt of his friend's anger with his eyelids slowly creaking shut as he remembers when he was put into this very same position by Driad before.

But now the mood between the two was different, which Geno points out as he opens his mouth and says "Again you suspend me in mid-air with blade at the ready…Only this time you threaten me like a child instead of a warrior seeking righteous justice for misdeeds done against him…But all the same, I will tell you most of what I know…" Geno opens his eyelids at the end of his sentence, his expression remaining stiff as he stares at Driad and notices the blade sinking down slightly before the living flower glances towards it and back with his lips curling into a serious scowl and he states "I'm listening…" His aggression has dropped slightly, but he is still keeping Geno suspended until he hears his friend out.

With a sigh acting as the prologue of his explanation, Geno looks Driad straight in the eyes with blank emotion coming from his pupils and says "Believe me when I say this…Mew had no plans to leave Plit anytime soon after defeating the reality bender…But, unknown circumstances led to him being sent back to Earth…Amnesiac, much like what happened to you when you lost your outer guardian rank. We don't know the exact details behind how it went down because of a temporal freezing zone, but we know who is responsible for this…" Geno hesitated for a moment to speak the name of the perpetrator, especially because he already knew just how little Driad liked said person. But if he kept his mouth shut, then he would never succeed in getting through to his friend…Once again, Geno would have the bear the pressure of his friend's rage.

"It was Alex…Alex gave Mew amnesia and sent him back to Earth." This name came at quite a shock to Driad for a variety of reasons, the first and foremost being the fact that he along with many, many other people had every right to believe that Alex Whiter was dead, so hearing that he was alive shook the Crayzee Dayzee right out of his anger. With his eyes widened momentarily, Driad found himself asking more questions than answering them in his mind, especially in regards to just why Alex never came back to them if he survived the fight with his evil duplicate. Diverting his anger away from Geno for a moment, the living flower politely asked the star herald after relaxing his expression along with his hold on his friend's wooden body "Geno…Where is Alex now?"

"…" Looking straight into Driad's curiosity filled, glimmering eyes, Geno could easily infer his friend's motivations in regards to asking that question, but knew that even if he was allowed to do so that revealing said information would be a really bad idea in the long run. With a heavy sigh that doesn't alert his flowery friend to the conflict in his mind, Geno replies "I'm sorry Driad…But I don't know where he is…And I wouldn't be allowed to tell you even if I did…I will say though that while I am both angry and disappointed in Alex for doing what he did to Mew, even if my expression doesn't exactly match my thoughts on the matter, there's just nothing either of us can do to punish him for his actions…Either the higher-ups will deal with him, or someone else will…" After finishing his sentiments towards Driad's anger in regards to Alex, the two stayed silent for a few long moments.

When Driad has had enough with standing around like an embittered fool, he looks up at Geno with a guilty arching of his eyebrows and says to him "…I'm sorry for doing this to you Geno…" As he releases his grip around his body and turns his leaf blade back into his normal arm. With his head then hung low, Driad asks Geno as the wooden doll floats back onto the ground with his cape flowing out beside him "…Why would Alex do this?" "I wish I could tell you Driad, but not even I know why…" Having been given a rather expected answer, Driad lets out a melancholy sigh and quickly drops into a sitting position where he lets his arms rests on top of his legs. He looks out past the side of the cliff and says to his friend in a tone of exhaustion "Well Geno, you should be happy to know that I don't really want to bother committing suicide anymore…"

Though Geno was happy to hear that, Driad aversive stare along with his melancholy demeanor suggested that there was still something on his mind that was bothering him, and with a polite tone of voice the star herald inquired "What's got you down now?" Turning his head slightly to look at the wooden doll, Driad says after another sigh and a closing of his eyelids "What am I supposed to do with my life now? …I mean yeah, I want to stay alive now just so I can perhaps find Alex and ask him just why he wiped Mew's memories and sent him back to Earth, or even better hope that Mew comes back here and remembers us…But what am I supposed to do besides that?"

"What do you mean by that?" Geno asks with a puzzled look in his eyes. "…" Turning his head towards Geno for a brief second, the Crayzee Dayzee then leans his body back and plants his vines against the ground so he has a proper support as he stares into the sky. "…I really don't want to be a fighter anymore." "…Go on." Geno, failing to understand just why his friend would say such a thing, decides not to wrack his mind to solve the problem on his own, but rather he chooses to politely ask Driad to give a more detailed explanation of his motives. "Geno, there's something I've caught notice of over the last year or so…Guys like Alex, Mew and Joe Dark…They don't appear to have an upper limit to their powers. They always have the potential within them to grow stronger and stronger…But guys like you and me, we don't have such a luxury…"

Driad raises his right vine into the air in front of his face, curling it up into a fist to curse his powerlessness as he turns towards Geno and lets out a light sigh. "I'm as strong as I'm going to get, and considering the type of threats we've seen from Tabuu to that reality bender…I just can't ever hope to contribute anything to any future fights…And personally, after being wiped from existence for even a few seconds, I'm a little shaken up and find myself afraid of death in any form…" Geno folds his arms in front of his chest and listens deeply to Driad's thought out explanation, his head taking the occasional nod to signify that he understands up until the end, at which point he creaks open his eyelids and says "And yet you wanted to commit suicide…"

The Crayzee Dayzee closes his eyelids and lets out a guilty sounding sigh before he picks himself up and nervously rubs the back of his head. "I don't know what I was thinking at the time now that I look back on it…I was just so stressed out, I felt so depressed about everything that I looked for an immediate solution to my problems and saw the dangerous ravine as a way to provide solace I needed in my life…How wrong I was, eh? Whatever, the point is that without my fighting capabilities, I'm pretty much useless in this world…" With yet another sigh marking the end of his sentence, Driad turns away from Geno and folds his arms in front of his chest, at which point the star herald is allowed a moment to think and try to empathize with his friend's plight.

"Driad, I want you to turn and look at me…" The star herald asks, an effort that proves rewarding as the Crayzee Dayzee turns himself around after a sigh of reluctance. "Now, reach out and touch me to confirm that I am real again…" Though Driad's face scrunched up in confusion, he nonetheless felt compelled to listen to Geno's strange idea and moved his right arm out to gently touch Geno's chest, his vine withdrawing as soon as he felt the rough hardness of the star herald's wooden body. "Yeah…You are real. So?" Driad states to better express his lack of understanding. Geno smiles as well as he can in this body, and says to his friend with a gesture of his right hand following his words "If I'm here, then you aren't worthless. You have friends Driad, bonds that will never die out no matter what happens…"

"…I think you are forgetting something there Geno." It doesn't take much for even the usually simple-minded Driad to find a flaw in Geno's sentiment. "I'm immortal, and so are you…I agree that OUR bond will never die out…But Mario, Luigi, everyone else…They will all die out from old age…Sure, I'll remember them for years to come after their deaths, but it just won't be the same…" "Well…Ummm, I actually didn't take that into consideration…" Geno admits with a hint of embarrassment in his tone of voice as he rubs his coarse right hand against the back of his head and looks away in shame. As he nervously chuckles, Geno is suddenly struck with a spark of inspiration that gives him the idea necessary to help his friend out of his current predicament.

"You know Driad, you don't have to be a great fighter to have a place in the world. You are the former outer guardian of the Nature Castle, instilled with the knowledge of all things plant related in the world by the Elemental Overlord…You are also worried about outliving your friends, and you want to avoid dying in battle." Geno sums up most of what has been mentioned thus far while also bringing up a trait that the Crayzee Dayzee himself had almost long forgotten, his knowledge. With an anticipating raise of his eyebrows, Driad turns towards the wooden doll and asks him "Go on…" In a way that mirrored how Geno spoke those words to him earlier. "Alright then, hear me out on this one, I think you'll like my idea…"

An hour or two later, when the sun has begun to set on the Mushroom Kingdom side of the planet, we find Mario, Driad and Geno standing around outside of the Mario Bros. house. Geno is looking towards the sky, enjoying the sunset for the first time in a long while as Driad finished talking to Mario. The red garbed plumber's arms fold in front of his chest as he finds himself both perplexed yet intrigued by what the Crayzee Dayzee was saying to him. When all was said and done, and Driad repeated the idea that Geno had suggested for him, Mario asks out of curiosity "Botany Teacher? You really want to be a Botany Teacher?" To which Driad ends up nodding his head enthusiastically. His depression had completely subsided, and he was back to his cheery self much to Mario and Geno's joy. The plumber, knowing that the star herald was responsible for this matter, tilted his head and looks at the back of his friend's head for a moment as Driad says to him "Yeah, I feel as though I can really feel satisfied with myself if I help people in a field that I'm proficient in."

"So where are you going to go exactly to teach?" Mario finds himself asking with a slight smile on his face. "Umm…Well, I was thinking about traveling to the Beanbean Kingdom, since I heard their University could use a few new teachers." Driad replies after taking a moment to think about what he was going to say. Mario unfurls his arms from his body and with a gesture of his right hand he asks his flowery friend with a bit of sadness in his voice "So that means you are moving out, huh?" "Unfortunately, yeah…" Driad's smile fades away a bit as he waves his right hand out in front of him. But his expression quickly lights back up as he looks at Mario and says to him "But hey, I won't be gone forever. I'll come back on the weekends and my days off to visit you and Luigi…Speaking of which, I'm sorry that he wasn't here to hear me out, I'm sure he'd be happy to know that I'm feeling better since he was the one who talked to me and convinced me to go out in the first place…"

"Don't worry about it Driad. Luigi will hear all about it when you get back. But hey, above all else…" Mario takes a steps forward and rests his right hand on Driad's shoulder, patting it down twice before saying with a tender smile on his face "I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors…" Driad's face becomes warm with happiness as he keeps his mouth slightly agape, and with an innocent smile and a tilt of his head as Mario withdraws his head he says to the red garbed plumber "Yeah, I will definitely try my best out there. I-I'm a little nervous, admittedly, but I know that I will be fine…" With a turn of his head to look at Geno, the Crayzee Dayzee finishes his sentence off by saying "Especially since I have people like you out there who believe in me…"

After giving a fond farewell to Mario, Driad turns around and runs past Geno, pausing in place for a moment as the wind from his movements rustles the star herald's cape. Having paid most of his attention towards the sky for the last few moments, the Crayzee Dayzee's abrupt movements startle Geno and cause him to slowly lower his head to look at his friend from the backside. "…Thanks again, Geno…If it wasn't for you, then I might really have-" "Driad, you didn't need to thank me for anything." Geno interrupts, which causes his flowery friend to turn his head to the right and glance at the wooden doll as he walks forward and says with his arms held behind both sides of his cape

"It was just like I said before…In the end, everything you did was of your own free will…Though I spoke to you, it was up to you and you alone to listen to me…" Driad's eyes widen out of surprised towards Geno's words, and as the star herald passed the Crayzee Dayzee by he holds his right hand out and creates a pillar of starry light that acts as a passageway back to Star Haven. He enters it and as he begins to levitate away from the planet's surface he turns back to Mario and Driad and tells the plumber "Sorry I have to cut this visit short Mario, but there are a couple things that I have to take care of…I'll be back down here later though."

Mario nods his head to show that he understands what Geno is saying, and with one last smile towards Driad Geno rises up towards the sky with his body fading out of view nice and slowly. He fails to notice the Crayzee Dayzee's final wave of his right vine, but Driad doesn't feel too bad about that. With his friend having left the Mushroom Kingdom for the time being, Driad lowers his head and looks on ahead, his mind focused on the single goal of becoming a Botany Teacher as he runs on ahead through the forest past the Mario Bros.' house and never once looks back. But even as he left the sight of the famous Mario, Driad remembers his second goal, to someday find Alex Whiter and get some answers about what happened to the man he wanted to call his brother, the second Elemental Overlord Mewmaster…For now though, he was glad to once again experience happiness…

_Next Story: Luigi's Trip to Sarassaland! (To be posted after the next story of Part 4...)_


	4. Luigi Chapter 1

**Luigi I: A Trip to Sarassaland**

"_Sir Luigi…Sir Luigi, wake up!" _An insistent yet regal voice calls out, the noise drowned by the groggy snore coming from the person the voice speaks to. The roar of the plane's engines off to the left also did little to help the person awake the man in green and only brother of Mario, Luigi, who current was resting fast asleep against the soft yellow leather passenger seat behind him with his head sagging down against his right shoulder. He was in a deep slumber, with only the occasional twitching of his nose alerting the golden-garbed Toad to the fact that the man in green is still alive. He is usually a patient fellow, but considering how he has spent the last three minutes trying to get Luigi awake his patience has started to run thin.

The Toad takes his hand out and pokes Luigi's gut, hoping to tickle him awake with that single action. But the man in green merely cracks a smile and giggles, his head moving up an inch before sinking back down into its delicately laid position. With all other options exhausted, the Toad lets out a peeved sigh before retreating to the nearby closet at the back of the hall, where he reaches into a lone box and pulls out a megaphone. Placing one hand against the mouth end as he walks back to the man in green, the Toad thinks to himself as his eyebrows sink in regret "As much as I hate to do this to the Princess' guest…" He then lifts the megaphone up, the widest part of the cone winding up just inches away from Luigi's right ear before the Toad exclaims into it "Get up right now you lazy oaf!"

The exclamation echoes through the megaphone and into Luigi's eardrum, ricocheting for seconds on end through his brain as his body is swiftly awoken in a panic, the man in green's arms flailing around as the Toad drops the megaphone and moves back to where he was before, standing in front of Luigi as he stops moving his arms and places one hand against his beating chest, a slight sweat dripping down the sides of his face as he looks at the Toad and says in an upset tone of voice "You could have given me a heart attack!" "I sincerely doubt that Sir Luigi…" The Toad replies, wanting to make his good intentions known to the man in green as he calms down, and once Luigi has removed his hand from his chest the Toad states with his arms folded behind his back and a light cough preceding his words "I just wished to inform you that we have entered Sarassaland airspace and shall be arriving at the airport within the next ten minutes."

The man in green blinked twice, not because the news was shocking but rather because he couldn't believe that he had slept for so long. He had departed from the Mushroom Kingdom about four hours ago, the last thing he recalls happening before he got on the plane was that he tried to help his old pal Driad out with his emotional distress, a matter that Luigi feels he didn't handle well enough considering the guilt in his eyes as he sat down in this seat after the plane had taken off. "…Well, I did what I could to help. Only Driad can conquer his own problems in the end…" Luigi thinks as he nods his head and says to the Toad in an appreciative tone "Thank you, I'll prepare to exit the plane."

The Toad nods his head in turn, but before he departs he decides to ask "If I may be so kind as to ponder…I noticed that you did not bring any luggage with you, Sir Luigi. May I ask why?" The man in green cracks a fond smile, his eyelids sinking longingly as he responds to the Toad with "For the next week its just going to be me and Daisy spending time with each other. No two-millennium old legacies, no ancient apocalyptic organizations, and no reality bending aliens…Just the two of us and all of Sarassaland to spend time in." The Toad raises an eyebrow suspiciously, Luigi misinterpreting the expression as he embarrassingly admits as a means of truly answering the question given to him "Oh, and I kind of forgot to grab my luggage before I departed…Thankfully Daisy keeps a few pairs of my type of clothing in her closet for such an occasion."

The Toad finds such information a little surprising, but as a blush appears on his face he composes himself with a gentle cough and proceeds to say to Luigi "You seem to be rather happy to be coming today…Do you perhaps plan to propose to Lady Daisy?" The man in green nervously wags his hands in front of his body after his eyes briefly widen, and with an insistent shake of his head he says to the mistaken Toad "No no no…Nothing like that. We aren't at a point in our relationship where we are wanting to even think about proposals. Right now we are just really good friends, and we just want to have a little fun after everything that has happened to Plit recently." The Toad glares at the use of the word 'fun', especially after Luigi's mention of Lady Daisy keeping some of his clothes in her closet, but the man in green catches the Toad's suspicions and says to him with honesty "We will be sleeping in separate beds, that's how it has always worked."

The Toad smiles, nudging his left shoulder at the man in green with a wink of the same sided eyelid before saying "I was merely rustling your jimmies, Sir Luigi. I know that you are currently trapped in the dreaded 'friend-zone' with Lady Daisy…" The man in green's eyes flinch, his head sinking towards his chest as he says in a melancholy tone "Well you didn't have to put it that way…" The Toad realizes his mistake and says in an apologetic tone "Forgive me for the improper terminology then, Sir Luigi…" With that conversation done for, the Toad departs as the plane descends towards the runway of Sarassaland, which is paved with glittering sapphires that store enough sunlight within them to stay bright even when night falls to help guide the pilots to their destination.

Luigi looks out the window, seeing the plains of green grass laid out beside the runway sparkling brightly because of the dew dripping on the countless blades. He smiles at Sarassaland's beauty, especially as he lifts his eyes up slightly and stares towards the gigantic, glamorous castle off in the distance that lies beyond a bustling, almost utopian city. But he loses sight of the city for a moment as the plane circles around once to position itself right above the runway, at which point the wheels extend from down below the vehicle to help land it, the rubber squeaking slightly along the slick stone runway for ten seconds much to the chagrin of Luigi's ears before the plane comes to a complete stop. The man in green jerks forward slightly as the speed of the plane subsides, but the seatbelt wrapped around his waist prevents him from being flung out of his seat.

Now that he had arrived in his destination, Luigi undoes that seatbelt and gets up, stretching to get the blood flowing after his brief nap before he moves down the hallway and heads towards the exit, which is a three-step staircase that is lowered away from the rest of the plane. With the Toad he spoke to earlier bowing his head as he throws his arms towards the outdoors, Luigi thanks the Toad for awaking him, showing no bad blood between them as he then proceeds down the stairs and feels the warm heat of the sun beating down upon him for the first time in a few hours. After preventing most of the brightness of the sunlight from entering his eyes with a raise of his right arm, the man in green pokes his head forward and begins to walk across the runway, his body momentarily pausing as he meets the person he came here to be with.

As inferred from previous mentions of her, the lady was a Princess much like Peach, though her dress was yellow instead of pink and she appeared to be wearing a second, longer regal skirt underneath the main dress. She also didn't wear frilly, ballroom gloves, but rather a pair of gloves that end right around her wrists and have a rather rough appearance to them. She does have the same blue brooch on her chest that Peach has along with the jeweled earrings, but instead of being direct duplicates Princess Daisy has given them a…Well, daisy motif by adding in white crystal petals around the jewels and brooch. Also in contrast to Peach's appearance is her face, which is more rounded with full cheeks while her eyes are slightly bigger with fuller eyelashes. The last thing of note is her hair, which is thick, bouncy, and long with its orange coloring having hints of a dark brown tone to it. On top of her head is a gold crown that is smaller than Peach's with four jewel adorned around it.

Daisy wore a merry smile on her face as Luigi directed his vision her way, and with a quick sprint across the runway the Princess stands before the man in green. She is somewhat taller than him, but that is mainly because of her shoes rather than her natural height. As a friendly greeting, Daisy takes her right hand and bops Luigi lightly on the nose, letting out a light giggle as she steps back and says to the man in green as a light blush appears across his cheeks "Come on Luigi, lets head on over to my castle!" The Princess wasn't one for formal greetings, as evidenced by her energetic desire to get moving now that her guest had arrived. The man in green didn't mind this behavior though, and he followed Daisy without a word. The two of them traveled through a small thicket of forest before arriving at the capital city of Sarassaland, where Luigi saw an abundance of citizens running in and out of stores with items in their arms or on their backs.

The creatures traveling through the glimmering streets bore some similarities to some of the creatures Luigi has seen in the Mushroom Kingdom, but he doesn't really comment on the matter as Daisy quickly bemoans "Oh…I forgot that today was when everyone was going to have a half-off special…" The man in green says to the Princess as she slaps her forehead and groans "Couldn't you just grab their attention so they can briefly step aside and allow us free passage to the castle?" Daisy glances over to Luigi with a slight smirk on her face as she responds with "Well couldn't you just use that Star Spirit form of yours to fly us to the castle?" The man in green shakes his head, surprised to hear the Princess ask that of him as he replies with "I don't think the Star Spirits would approve of me using those powers for such a trivial purpose."

Daisy turns her head back, letting out a small puff of air from her mouth as she holds her fists against her hips and says to Luigi "Well there you go. I can't just go and abuse my power on the common folk…Hmmm…" The Princess looks to the awnings above the entrance to the stores, poking her head towards the rooftops as a mischievous smile crosses her face and she quickly turns around, running backwards a couple of steps as she waves away from a puzzled Luigi and says "I hope all that flying you've been doing hasn't weakened your jumps Luigi! Come on, I'll race you to the castle!" Daisy, edging the man in green on to compete with her to make the trip to the castle more interesting, turns her body back around and dashes forward a few more steps before leaping gracefully onto one of the awnings, and after said awning sinks a couple inches from her weight Daisy is sprung onto the rooftops where she proceeds to sprint towards the castle.

Of course, Luigi is naturally left befuddled by the Princess' swift change in plans, but after cracking a smile the man in green decides to take part in Daisy's challenge and quickly moves towards the rooftops via the same manner as the tomboyish Princess. Though Daisy got a head start on him, the man in green was swift on his feet and was quickly working to close the distance between the two of them. Daisy looked back as she jumped between buildings, smiling and winking to throw Luigi off-guard for a moment before she grips onto the frills of her dress and holds them up slightly to prevent them from being a potential tripping obstacle, which in turn allows her to pick up the pace without fear of caution.

The man in green flinches in surprise at the fact that the Princess was holding back, and as he holds his arms behind him and leans his head forward Luigi forgoes all other distractions in the environment around him and quickly works to achieve his maximum ground speed. He keeps his eye on the ledges, making certain not to trip over them as he leaps from rooftop to rooftop in order to catch up with Daisy. The castle grows closer along with the Princess herself, and Daisy actually seems a bit surprised by the man in green's energy as she looks back and sees him only a few feet away from her. But there was still one advantage Daisy had as far as this race went, and with how determined and focused Luigi currently was there was no way that said advantage would be lost to her.

Turning back on ahead as the castle grew ever closer, Daisy smirks and begins to slow down at the edge of the rooftop, turning around and looking back at the man in green before he passes her by and leaps straight off the rooftop without giving a second thought towards the Princess' strange action. There was only one stretch of forest left to cross and he'd be the victor…If he was racing anywhere else, that is. For you see, legend speaks of a single awning in Sarassaland that is so bouncy, that if you played your cards right with it you could launch all the way up to the top of Princess Daisy's castle…However, Daisy, having planned to invite Luigi exactly on the day when the town would be busy with half-off deals, had been practicing on the awning until she figured out the perfect way to land on it so she would be propelled straight to victory.

Thus the tomboyish Princess leaps off of the rooftop, landing on the awning and being launched over the trees separating the capital city from the castle itself as her joyous "Yeehaw!" echoes into Luigi's eardrums as she flies by overhead, much to his surprise. The man in green lifts his head up for just a moment, ignoring the ground below him just as a large, firmly placed rock gets in the way of his feet and causes him to trip and stumble out of the forest, his body tumbling across the dirty ground for a few seconds as Daisy lands right in front of the ruby Oriental gates of her castle with her arms thrust high into the air and a victorious expression painted onto her face. She cheers boisterously, unaware of what happened to Luigi until she starts shaking her booty and turns around while swinging her arms in front of her chest, at which point she sees the man in green on his keister with a few bits of dirt on his clothing and face. The Princess immediately drops her victory dance and runs off to Luigi, her eyes showing a hint of concern for his condition as she asks "Oh my gosh Luigi, what happened to you?"

The man in green lifts his head up, dazed a bit from the multiple impacts with the ground as he responds to Daisy with "I-I think I tripped on something…" He was a little embarrassed to admit that as he rubbed the back of his head with his left hand, but the Princess didn't hold that fact against him as she extended her right hand out and offered to help the man in green up. Luigi took her hand, rising to his feet as the Princess put on a joyous smile and said to him "That's not all that happened Luigi." The man in green was puzzled by the comment Daisy said, his head tilting as he lets go of her hand and she in turn says "I won! Haha, the victory of the day goes to Daisy!" The Princess flings her arms into the air, cheering for herself once more as he turns around and lets out a loud "Woo-hoo!" much to the annoyance of the man in green.

Luigi, forgetting about his tripping accident for just a moment, smirks and says to Daisy "Now Daisy, don't get too full of yourself. The week is still young, and I WILL beat you in all other competitions we have over the next few days." The Princess stops cheering for a moment, turning to face the man in green with a sly smirk and firm glare on her face as she responds to his brave prediction with "Oh really now? Ok Luigi, since you lost first, what type of competition do you want to have next?" The man in green says with a coy raise of his eyebrows "Golf. 18 holes, no handicaps." Daisy puts on a shit-eating grin, accepting the man in green's challenge offer with a firmly spoken "Alright, you're on!" But before the two of them could head off to the Sarassaland, they had to change their clothes.

Thus the two entered the castle, the insides having a rather ancient China feel to them despite the fact that Daisy herself has never visited Earth, where this aesthetic style originated from. But Luigi didn't bother to take in the sites seeing as he had been here many times before, so he just followed Daisy along to her room, and after the two of them change clothes (Which in Daisy's case involves putting on a yellow tank top with a floral white collar along with orange shorts with yellow rims around the pockets and orange-and-yellow tennis shoes) the Princess almost forces another race onto the man in green to see who can reach the golf course first. However, Luigi quickly insists "No!", to which Daisy says with a pout of her lips "Spoil sport." The two of them then exit the castle through the back, making their way to the vibrant, fall colored golf course in what could be considered as just part of the Princess' backyard.

For the next couple of hours the two humans play golf with their own sets of clubs, going from hole to hole on their golf carts while trying their hardest to outdo the other's score. The grass and dirt is torn up by the wheels grinding against them as they ride, but Daisy doesn't worry much about this seeing as her groundskeepers will put everything back in order in a matter of hours. Instead, she focuses more on the enjoyment of this competition, especially seeing as come the 18th hole she is a couple points ahead of Luigi. The man in green doesn't fret though, for all he had to do was get a score that was three points lower than Daisy's and he'd win. Considering that this was a par 5, that meant getting an Eagle seeing as the Princess' track record for these type of holes so far was to get a Bogey.

Luigi gauged the direction and speed of the wind and swung his driver, hitting the golf ball with precision and watching as it flew through the bright sky towards the fairway, landing on the ground just inches away from a water hazard. Daisy then steps up to swing, thrusting her club straight forward in the direction she feels the ball will travel as she winks one eyelid shut and grins at her inevitable victory. She grips the handle of the club tightly, positioning it behind the ball as she stares at it with all of her might. She takes a mighty swing at the ball, but right as she hits it a mighty wind blows towards the west of where she stands. Daisy panics as she lifts her head up, gritting her teeth as she watches the ball fly across the air, curving its flight towards the water hazard before falling unceremoniously plopping into it much to the Princess' annoyance.

The two humans then make their way to their respective balls, though Luigi merely plays casually from here on out, whistling quietly to himself as he hits the ball knowing full well that Daisy's luck was not going to improve. The Princess places her ball down beside where the first one landed in the water, trying her hardest to salvage her score for this hole with this next shot only for another gust of wind to blow her ball into another water hazard just inches away from the green. The Princess was starting to lose her composure and wanted to curse at the wind, but kept instead clasped the handle of her golf club and stomped on ahead to the next water hazard in order to place another ball down.

Meanwhile Luigi has already gotten his ball onto the green in two shots, but he has to wait for Daisy to get on before he can bust out his putter and sink in an Eagle. The Princess furiously swings at the golf ball, and after seconds of cutting up the grass she hits the ball and watches as it flies straight over the green and onto the knee-high grass on the other side. The man in green now finds himself sitting contently in his golf cart as Daisy tries time after time again to get the ball on the green until it eventually reaches a point where has gone over the limit and can't hit the ball anymore, at which point Luigi calmly says to a red-in-the-face Daisy "Daisy, I think you've already lost this game."

The Princess hears the man in green, and through his words Daisy calms down and decides against hitting the ball with the full might of her anger. She then turns towards Luigi, a slight frown on her disappointed face as she says "Fine, you win this round Luigi! But now we are tied, and I get to decide what we are going to do next!" She switches to a mischievous grin near the end of her sentence, something that unsettles the man in green as he lets out a timid gulp. The two humans move on to the next event in a tennis court, where this time around Daisy shows no mercy to Luigi as she swings her racket hard, the ball rocketing across the court and nearly blowing the man in green's head clean off before he has a chance to react. Needless to say, Daisy wins this round of their competition.

The sun was starting to set by this point, but it was still nice enough for the two humans so Luigi decided that their next event would be to go go-kart racing on the Daisy Circuit. The two take their respective go-karts from the garage of Daisy's castle (Don't ask why she had one installed) and drive out to the Circuit, moving to the starting line after getting a Lakitu to dangle the lights from his pole. There was unfortunately not enough of a heads-up given to allow someone a chance to set up item boxes, so it was going to be a bare bones race to the finish. The two humans take their go-karts through twists and turns, tunnels and…staircases in order to secure victory. The karts are pushed to their limits, their speeds staying at maximum as the rubber tires grind against the asphalt roads for a grand total of three laps, with Luigi proving to be the winner at the very end of the race by just an inch. Now the score was tied…And a determined Daisy knew the perfect way to break the tie.

Back at the castle, the two humans sat on a puffy yellow couch in Daisy's bedroom, their bodies positioned perfectly in front of a giant screen TV as their grip GameCube controllers in their hands and watch as a large text saying "Mario Party 7!" appears on the screen, with everyone from Mario to Toadette running across a scaled down version of the planet with happy looks on their faces. Daisy presses start and loads up her save file, but before she starts Party Mode Luigi's eyes go blank as he realizes something very important…"Wait a second…We're playing Mario Party…" The Princess, proceeding through the starting steps of the game, says nonchalantly to the man in green "Uh-huh." Luigi then turns to her and says with a bewildered look in his eyes "But Daisy, GameCubes aren't made on Plit, so how is it you have one?"

The Princess's eyes widen as her body stiffens up, and a few seconds later Daisy tosses the GameCube right through one of her windows to avoid the subject matter entirely. She then proceeds to the chair of a nearby table and slams her elbow down against the surface, staring over at Luigi as she grips her fingers together tightly and says "This will be the real final challenge…ARM WRESTLING!" Her voice flares up with excitement, but the man in green can't help but start sweating profusely as he hears the bones crack every time Daisy flexes her fingers inward. The Princess was known for many things, but the most prominent of them all was her sheer upper body strength that she strived to obtain after the first and only time she was ever kidnapped…It really goes a long way to explain why someone like Bowser hasn't come after her.

Unfortunately for Luigi, this very arm strength of Daisy's meant that the man in green would lose the very moment she said go. It was somewhat underhanded choice for the tiebreaking event, but considering the Princess' highly competitive nature the man in green should have seen this coming a mile away. But as Daisy grins and says to him "Come on Luigi, you can't back down now!" The man in green knew he'd have to swallow his worries and face the Princess in arm wrestling, even if it meant breaking every bone in his right arm…Luigi goes to sit down on the chair opposite of Daisy, only for a voice to break the tension from outside the broken window. "Hello again, Princess Daisy."

Daisy recognizes the voice immediately, her body becoming loose for a moment as she stands out of her chair and looks towards the window with disbelief in her eyes as the man in green stands behind the Princess and watches out for her as she moves closer to the person outside the window. The being was a burly purple alien that was roughly a few inches taller than Luigi. He wore a sleek black uniform with broad, double-tiered silver shoulder pads and a crimson belt around his waist. His hands had four fingers with rather pronounced claws, all of which looked just as sharp as the fangs in his mouth. His eyes were devoid of any irises, meaning that he had only medium sized black dots allowing him to look down at Princess Daisy with his eyebrows curved towards the area where his nose should be. The other thing of note on this alien were his pointed, bat-like ears. All of these distinctive features made Daisy's following response to this alien quite clear in regards to his identity "What are you doing here Tatanga?"

The Princess didn't seem at all threatened by Tatanga's sudden appearance. She doesn't even care to know how the alien is floating in mid-air in front of her window, nor does she want to know just why the alien has the balls to stand in front of her after his last appearance. Tatanga merely rubs his grimy alien fingers together, staring down at them as he says in a suave manner to the Princess "Why my dear sweet Princess…I am here to hold you hostage." The alien was nonchalantly blunt about such a serious issue, but upon hearing it Daisy stared at Tatanga for a few moments as though the alien had lost his mind before proceeding to puff her cheeks out in an attempt to contain her laughter before promptly falling onto her back and letting out a jolly guffaw at the alien's bravado as she rolls back and forth barely able to catch her own breath in the midst of her laughter.

Tatanga remains ever serious during the whole ordeal, especially as Luigi walks closer to him and says "Tatanga? You're that alien dude Mario beat up a few years ago, right?" The mention of the plumber in red brings a hint of fury to the alien's expression, but not enough to break his composure fully as he replies to the man in green with "Why yes…I am a familiar enemy of the famous hero of Mushroom Kingdom…And you must be his brother, Loogee." "…That's Luigi." The man in green bluntly replies, his expression showing annoyance at the fact that Tatanga just called him a booger by accident. The alien smiles, saying in turn to the man in green "Right, right…Luigi. Forgive me for not remembering the name of a second-rate sidekick…"

Luigi scowls upon being called that, but before he can verbally respond to Tatanga's coy attitude Daisy stops laughing and rises to her feet while wiping a tear from her right eye. With one deflated laugh to end it all, the Princess looks towards the alien with her eyelids barely open and says "You can't really be serious Tatanga…Remember how well your last attempt went? Do you really think you can successfully conquer my kingdom again?" The alien smirks, folding his arms behind his belt as he says responds to the Princess with a deep chuckle "Princess Daisy…What makes you think my intention here is to take over your kingdom?" Pulling his right arm out from behind his back, the burly alien reveals in the grasp of his pronounced claws a gelatinous sphere that wiggles around trying to keep its mass in balance. With a widening of his smirk Tatanga breaks open the sphere with the tips of his claws.

In seconds the sky becomes pitch black as a neon flash causes everything to invert and revert their natural colors for ten long seconds as a dome roughly 5 miles wide in circumference surrounds the entirety of Princess Daisy's castle, the very edge of it cutting into the stores down in the capital city as hundreds of citizens vacate the premises to avoid being trapped in the barrier, which finishes coming down with a ground trembling impact. Daisy hears the panicked cries coming from outside the castle, and quickly looks towards Tatanga with shock in her eyes as the alien smirks and says to the Princess "Now then…Shall we begin?"

_Next Time: Tatanga's Demands_


	5. Luigi Chapter 2

**Luigi II: Tatanga's Revenge**

_Months back, in a lone bar on a far-off alien world, a weary Tatanga sits at a barstool with his head laid down onto the sleek, cold wood as a mug once filled with a strange beer-like liquid is barely grasped in his right hand on top of the bar itself. He appears to be somewhat drunk, though you almost wouldn't be able to tell that considering how depressed he looks at the moment. It isn't until he pokes his eyes up and speaks that you can hear the grogginess in his voice "Bartender…Get me another drink…" He can barely compose a sentence, something the six-armed eyeless alien bartender cares little about as he takes a clean mug and fills it with an acidic, bubbling liquid to serve to Tatanga. The alien conqueror places the previous mug next to a stack of twenty others, taking this new one with a single weak grasp and chugging it down in an instant._

_At the rate Tatanga was going, he was likely going to poison his body and die, but the alien conqueror seemed to be unaware of this as he asked for yet another mug of alien beer. He slammed the previous one down beside the others, folding his arms in front of his head as he thinks to himself "…How can I ever return to my planet…First I failed to conquer Plit…Then I tried to conquer a planet called Corneria…And finally I went for a bunch of other small time planets only to fail…So much for the grand conqueror…I can never show my face to my people…And it all started because I was defeated by a fat plumber in a plane…I would do anything to return to that planet and clear my name by killing that plumber…"_

"_That can most certainly be arranged…" A mysterious voice calls out to Tatanga through his mind, causing him to flinch and nearly suffer a heart attack before he lifts his head up and looks around, in a drunken stupor pulling out his ray gun and pointing it towards the direction of the voice. Though his vision is blurred, he can see a lone figure standing ahead of him, the only thing he can see clearly being the skull-topped staff grasped in the being's right hand. With his gun barely aimed at the figure and his mind wondering why he is the only one reacting to this mysterious person's appearance, Tatanga woozily proclaims "Who are you?"_

"_An ally, a solution to your problems, or your enemy…You are welcome to label me however you wish, conqueror Tatanga." The mention of his name causes the alien to lower his weapon, staring into the supposed eyes of this mysterious, charismatic being and asking him "How do you know me?" The being chuckles, the movement of his body as he laughs causing his staff to slowly rattle as he responds to Tatanga with "I know many people both good and evil…I am, as they say, a very observant fellow. But you in particular interest me, Tatanga…And I wish to hire you for a certain job. But before I continue…"_

_With a wave of his staff, the mysterious being undoes Tatanga's drunken stupor, making his thoughts as clear as they used to be and allowing the alien to get a better look at the person. He looks surprised for a moment, a hint of disgust being present on his expression before he says to the being "I'm surprised you are walking around so casually with that appearance…" The being chuckles, saying to the oblivious Tatanga as the ray gun is holstered into his belt "Alas, I am not actually here. You see, I am a master of the dark arts, and with them I have projected an image of myself into your mind to keep my appearance scarce from the eyes of those around you. At the time of activation, a secondary spell was also put into effect that has frozen everyone within the entire galaxy save for you and me until our conversation has come to an end."_

_Tatanga scoffs, finding himself both impressed and surprised at the effort the being has gone through in order to reach him, though he has to wonder why he would go that far and proceeds to ask "But why all the secrecy? Nobody here besides me would know what planet you are from." "I'm glad you are asking…You see, I do not want anyone to know that I am responsible for your later actions…By using my magic to communicate with you instead of appearing directly, it prevents any certain individuals from probing your mind for connections on the off-chance you do happen to fail. But don't take my words as a sign of dissuasion…After all, I wouldn't have come to you if I didn't have confidence in your abilities."_

_Tatanga smirks, folding his arms behind his back as he listens intently to the mysterious person as they say to him "Now then…There is a particular person I want dealt with…Whether you incapacitate him or kill him, I don't care…Though considering your past encounters with him, I imagine you will be leaning more towards the later. I want you to return to Plit and deal with Mario…" The alien was confused by this request, though his absolutely ecstatic expression didn't alert the master of the dark arts to this feeling in Tatanga's mind until he said to him "And just why do you have a grudge against the plumber?" "Heh…" The being chuckles, in turn responding to the conqueror with an honest "Personally, I have nothing against the Hero of the Mushroom Kingdom…But for my end game to come to fruition, he needs to be away from that which he guards the most."_

"_So do you want me to kidnap Princess Peach or something?" Tatanga asks. The being shakes his head and looks at the alien, scowling as he bluntly says "No! The point is to not draw suspicion. If you return to Plit and go for Peach, then everything will be ruined. Instead, you should return to Sarassaland and use Princess Daisy as a hostage in order to lure Mario out and deal with him then." "…And how exactly am I supposed to pull off something that big? I'm incredibly low on funds, so I can't just make up a new-" "If you accept this task, I will provide you with sufficient funds to create whatever you need to accomplish the goal of ending Mario's life." _

"_And what will I get in turn besides the satisfaction of killing Mario?" Tatanga asks, a smirk crossing his face as he expects more of a reward to be given to him by the mysterious man. With a slight wave of his staff, the master of dark magic says to the alien "If you prove successful…I shall rewrite the memories of everyone who has witnessed your failures, thus allowing you to return home as though your record had never been sullied by a single man in a plane." It didn't take much convincing beyond that to get Tatanga's allegiance, and with a brimming smile the alien conqueror says "You have yourself a man." "Excellent…But before I go, I have something I wish to give you…" Reaching into his skull, the being pulls out a squishy orb of pulsating magic and moves it through the air to the front of Tatanga's face "This will be certain to help you in keeping the Princess hostage…For you see, with it…"_

"This dome of mine surrounds your castle and most of the town below." Tatanga says, his memories of the past coming to an end as he stares down at the slightly angered Daisy and the worried Luigi, his right hand swung out beside his body as he details the properties of his new dome to his two onlookers "If you try to escape, you'll fail…If you try and stop me, you'll fail…All you can do is stand there and wait until my true prize appears." "And just what do you mean by 'my true prize'?" Daisy exclaims defiantly, earning a chuckle from the alien conqueror as he states "I missed that defiant spunk of yours Princess…But yes, you deserve to know what my true intentions are since you are the hostage. My plan is to lure Mario here and face him in single combat with my new creation, killing him to end the humility he brought upon me when he defeated me twice not too long ago!" Tatanga's emphasizes his scorn towards the red plumber with a scowl and a tight clenching of his right fingers.

Daisy looks at the madman, glaring at him much like one in her position would do and with a tug on the bottom of her right glove the Princess says angrily to Tatanga "And what's stopping me from kicking your butt back to space right now?" The alien nonchalantly responds with "I'm glad you asked." And with a snap of his fingers, the air starts to distort rapidly, the visions of all involved waving back and forth and then up and down as a strange noise begins to fill the air, wobbling in the eardrums of the two humans before Tatanga begins to explain "If you do not stand down and play the role of damsel in distress willingly, I will cause this dome to collapse upon everyone besides myself, killing all of you and leaving everything within a 100 mile radius outward as a smoldering patch of rock. If you value the lives of your people as a Princess rightfully should, you will heed my warning."

Daisy hates the idea of submitting to Tatanga, but he seems ready to live up to his own threats. With a light sigh, the Princess hesitantly says "Alright fine…I'll be your hostage…" Immediately after saying that, the distortions end, and Tatanga says with a haughty grin "Thank you for your cooperation Princess. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll need to go wait for the people that will certainly try and bargain with me before Mario comes to rescue you, Daisy…And who knows, perhaps he will bother to care about his second-rate brother…" Raising an eyebrow in mockery towards the man in green, Tatanga scoffs at Luigi's attempt to scowl at him and turns around, floating away on his cybernetic platform into the distance as Daisy lets out an angered breath and falls straight onto her butt, her face ripe with irritation as she pounds the floor with her fist and says with eyelids sealed tight "Can't believe this happened! All I wanted was to have a little fun with you Luigi and we get wrapped up in another villain's stinking plot!"

Despite Daisy's current bout of rage, the man in green tries to calm her down by saying "Its not like Tatanga is going to get away with his plans." The Princess lets out another sigh, relaxing her muscles as she pulls her fist away from the cracked ground and turns her head to look at Luigi, pointing out to him "I know he isn't going to succeed…But this is still a gigantic nuisance." The man in green chuckles, waving his right arm beside his body as he responds with "Tell me about it. How do you think I feel? Mario is dealing with his own stuff this week, and now he's being dragged into my own affairs again and I can't do anything to help." "You sure about that Luigi?" Daisy says with hope and confidence towards the man in green, and as she stands up and smiles Luigi finds himself taken aback by the Princess' words as she asks "Couldn't you use the Star Spirits' power to take down Tatanga and the dome?"

"I could if I knew how to. But we shouldn't try anything while Tatanga holds ours and your people's lives in his hands." Luigi tries to speak in such a way that he doesn't show disapproval towards Daisy's idea, but that it would be for the best to try it out when they know more about the dome itself. The Princess pouts, appearing upset at the man in green's refusal to act until she realizes how foolish it would be to be too rash, at which point she relaxes her expression and says to Luigi "You're right…I'm sorry, I just don't want Mario to get involved myself. It goes against all that I've done to prevent having to be a damsel in distress like Peach always is. Not to mention it sucks having your people's lives at stake…Hopefully we can sort this out without anyone getting hurt besides Tatanga…"

"I assure you Princess…The only one getting hurt here today will be the precious Hero of the Mushroom Kingdom." Daisy turns back around upon hearing the voice of Tatanga behind her. The alien had returned quicker than she had imagined her would, though he now had a circular communication device grasped around his pronounced right claws. It was active, as evidenced by the crimson neon glow around the rim. "But for now, someone wishes to communicate with you…I will give him full authority to speak with you just to assure him that I will not harm a single hair on your heads unless my wishes are not met." With a flick of his hand, Tatanga tosses the communicator over to Daisy, turning around and flying off once more as the Princess holds the communicator close enough to her right ear so Luigi can hear the person speaking says into the microphone planted at the bottom of the device "Hello? Who is this?"

"_Princess Daisy, this is Lieutenant Gemini of the M.S.I., are you currently unharmed?" _The familiar voice of the Koopa Lieutenant surprises Luigi, but he doesn't say anything until Daisy nods her head and responds with "I'm fine, thanks for asking. Tatanga has just been acting like a haughty jerk, he hasn't done anything damaging yet." _"Well I'm glad to hear that…" _Gemini calmly responds, at which point the man in green interjects and exclaims "Gemini, what are you doing here?" The Lieutenant pauses momentarily, surprised himself by Luigi's voice before he stutters out in a more casual tone of voice _"Luigi? You got to be kidding me, how did you get involved in this mess?" _"I just came here to Sarassaland to hang out with Daisy and the next thing you know I'm pretty much a secondary hostage for Tatanga." The man in green doesn't try to hide the truth from his friend, but this reveal just makes Gemini more concerned as evidenced by his static-y murmur on the other line.

"_Well, just hang in there right now Luigi…We got the battleship and a few other fighter jets parked outside the dome, so we'll do whatever we can to help with the tech on board our vehicles. Just don't go and do anything reckless and we'll try and keep you as up-to-date as physically possible. Lieutenant Gemini-" _"Hey wait a second Gemini." The man in green interrupts, and after pausing mid-sentence the Koopa waits to hear Luigi out as he asks "Why are you leading this operation? Where is Alpha?" _"Sigh…Didn't think you'd catch on to that so quickly. Yeah, Commander Alpha just up and vanished a few hours ago. He only left a note behind saying that I am welcome to try and contact him any time if things get too out of hand, but I have no idea where he is right now. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to cut the communication line for now."_

With that, the device shuts down, leaving Luigi and Daisy alone in the castle with only a slight glimmer of hope in the form of Gemini and the rest of the M.S.I. at that very moment. Naturally, Daisy lets out a sigh of relief and begins to move towards the couch, planting herself down on the comfy seat as she says to Luigi "Its nice to know that one ally of yours is helping us out…Perhaps Mario won't have to get involved if things go right." "I'd like for that to happen." Luigi says with the utmost amount of honesty, even though deep down something about this whole mess has left him feeling quite disturbed, as if there was more to the ordeal than what he was seeing. But for now though, he kept his concerns hidden and decided to look out the nearby window, keeping a firm eye on Tatanga as the alien floated at the northern edge of the barrier and appeared to be communicating with Gemini on the other side.

After a few minutes, the Lieutenant re-opens the communication line with Princess Daisy, and the man in green walks over to her so he can hear what Gemini has to say. _"We tried to negotiate with Tatanga about your release…But he refuses to budge. We are going to try and analyze the dome now, but we are also going to try and contact Mario…Is that ok with you, Luigi?" _Gemini was specific when he said the man in green's name, mostly because he understood why Luigi would be hesitant in wanting his brother to get involved, but he is actually surprised when the man in green quickly respond with "Do what you need to Gemini. Just make sure no one gets harmed…Especially not my brother, if it comes down to that." _"…Alright, hang in there you two."_

Shutting off communication with a push of a button, the yellow-shelled Lieutenant leans back in the chair that his Commander usually sits down upon and folds his arms diagonally, tapping his pointed fingers together as he puts himself in a deep state of thought while issuing an order to the men down below to start scanning the dome for any familiar energy signatures. He waits patiently, his mind hard at work trying to come up with a plan to deal with Tatanga safely from the outside. He recalls how when he handed the communicator to the alien conqueror from the deck of the battleship, Tatanga had commented that "Don't go in too far, or you may never come out." At the time the Lieutenant had assumed that such words were meant to be taken as a threat, but perhaps there was another meaning behind them…It was something that Gemini wasn't given much time to think about, as one of the men in charge of analyzing the sphere turns around and says to the Lieutenant "Sir, you might want to take a look at this."

Parting his hands and laying them on the arms of the chair, Gemini looks on as a screen of text and data appears on the large window. Within seconds of reading all that the analysis had to offer, the Lieutenant's eyes widen in disbelief as he exclaims to the men below "Are you certain that this is accurate?" The center man nods, and after barely containing his concerns the Koopa pulls his head against his chair and nervously rubs his forehead while thinking to himself "Great…This just went from bad to worse…" The Lieutenant pulls his hand away, opening his eyelids slightly and continuing to think after letting out a sigh "I can't let the Commander know about this right now…" Before he can worry anymore about what he saw, a lone Shy Guy walks up beside the pedestal the chair rests atop and says "Lieutenant Gemini, we have another problem on our hands…" Disgruntled, Gemini responds bluntly with "Great, what type of bad news do you want to drop on me now?"

Back inside of the castle, the communicator turns back online, and Daisy quickly puts it up to her ear while Luigi moves over to her to hear what Gemini has to say. In a disappointed tone of voice, the Lieutenant states _"Mario is nowhere to be found." _The man in green flinches in shock. He wondered how his brother was unable to be found by the M.S.I., and this news only filled him with a foreboding sense of dread. "That's impossible." Daisy responds to Gemini. "How can Mario just disappear? Luigi even told me that he wasn't planning on going anywhere for the next few days." _"Sigh…I don't know what to tell you two. I do find it suspicious that Mario has vanished not long after Alpha suddenly departed from the base…But we can't worry about their whereabouts right now, especially since we need to come up with a new plan to stop Tatanga."_

"The problem is that dome he set up…Can't you use your powers to shut it down, Gemini?" Luigi asks. The Lieutenant grumbles on the other side of the communicator, as he argues in his mind on whether or not he should tell the two humans the truth about the dome. In a couple of seconds, the Koopa relents and decides to tell a half-truth in response to the man in green's question. _"If the dome was electronic in origin, I would have shut it down before Tatanga would even know about my presence. You probably won't believe this, but Tatanga's barrier was created from magic." _"Huh? Magic? When did Tatanga become a wizard?" Daisy asks in confusion. _"I don't know. I never even heard much about the guy before this whole mess started…" _Gemini honestly replies.

"_But what I do know is this…The dome is constructed in such a way that once someone enters, they cannot escape. That's why if Mario were to show up, he would be stuck in a battle to the death with Tatanga." _"I don't think that's true." Luigi quickly interjects, which causes Gemini to respond with _"What do you mean by that?" _"Well, when he threatened us with a collapsing dome, he said that he would survive the whole ordeal. I doubt he has anything technologically advance enough to protect himself, so that would mean that the dome was designed to allow Tatanga himself to escape. He did have that cybernetic platform that would make it easy for him to leave if he wanted to." _"That's a good observation Luigi…So if we want to stop Tatanga, the best course of action would be to force him to be stuck in the dome with no way to escape. If you do that then he will have to shut the dome down or end his own life." _

"But if we go to fight him then he'll just activate the dome on us." Daisy is quick to point out. _"If you and Luigi try to fight him, yeah…Which is why instead we are going to give him exactly what he wants." _Gemini's idea strikes the man in green as being rather odd, especially after what was said earlier about Mario's disappearance. Daisy however, believes that they can pull the idea off and says with a nod of agreement "Alright Gemini, I got a way to make this work. Just tell Tatanga that Mario will be coming to face him very soon, and make sure to keep him waiting at the edge of the dome." _"Can do. Gemini out." _As the communicator shuts down, Luigi says in a flabbergasted tone to Daisy "What do you mean Mario will be fighting Tatanga?! We can't fulfill that promise!"

The ever optimistic Princess turns towards the man in green, smiling as she pulls herself up from the couch and says "Yes we can. In fact, I'm looking right at 'Mario' at this very moment!" Daisy stares at Luigi with her smile ever-pleasant, and the man in green stutters while pointing at himself "M-Me? You want me to pretend to be my brother? B-But how can we pull that off?" "Simple, follow me." The Princess says in a casual tone as she waves her hand and turns towards her closet. Luigi reluctantly follows behind Daisy, watching as she opens the large closet doors and moves towards the back, reaching beyond the many dresses and sporting outfits she has to pull out a specific set of clothes attached to a silver hangar. After turning around to face the man in green she drapes the clothes in front of her body, revealing to Luigi the famous red-and-blue wardrobe of his brother, cap and gloves included.

"…I don't even want to know why you have that…" Luigi says with a blank look in his eyes. "But you can't be serious Daisy…I can't wear Mario's clothes, I'm not worthy of even pretending to be half the hero he is…" The man in green then says, putting himself down in such a way that it greatly upsets the Princess and has her stamp her foot to force Luigi's to look at her as she states with a firm glare "I don't want to hear any of that from you Luigi! You keep thinking that you are nothing compared to Mario, well you are wrong! You are courageous, strong-hearted, kind, and everything else that Mario is and more! You are just as worthy of wearing these clothes as he is every day, and you know just as well as I do that Mario would be proud to know that you are doing this for him…Come on Luigi, if you can do this for anyone…Do it for me, please?" After Daisy's heartfelt plea towards the man in green, Luigi firms his glare towards Mario's clothes, staring at it for seconds on end until he makes his decision…

Outside the castle, Tatanga stares at the bottom of the dome in anticipation for Mario's appearance. He is unaware of the person approaching him from behind, and it takes their declaration of his name to get him to turn his cybernetic platform around and look down at the man calling him out. It was Luigi, but from Tatanga's point of view he saw the familiar red-and-blue garb and was unable to see the different in weight and height due to how high up he is. The man in green did a great job of impersonating his brother's voice, since he couldn't let Tatanga have a single clue that he was not who he appeared to be. "Its about time you arrived Mario…I've been looking forward to our rematch for quite some time…Now its time for you to perish in the land that you defeated me so many years ago…"

With a tap of his foot against the cybernetic board, Tatanga causes the strange device to begin folding outward until it becomes a large square with two dimensional rifts, both of them slowly pouring out a massive array of mechanical parts such as coils and gears that fuse together in such a way that they resemble muscle fibers and a working system of organs. After seconds of construction metal plates emerge from the rifts, most of them either crimson or blue in color. They meld to the muscles, creating a type of metal armor that perfectly resemble Mario's clothes as best as a robotic suit can manage. Finally the remainder of parts forms a silver metallic head around Tatanga, the pulsing yellow glow of the robot's eyes finishing off the creation of this gigantic mechanized Mario with the alien conqueror using the cockpit's control in order to summon forth flamethrowers from the wrists of the metallic gloves in order to set them on fire and imitate Mario's Firebrand technique. Through the booming microphone of the robot, Tatanga declares to 'Mario' "I will assure you that this demise will be most ironic, Mario! The only one capable of besting you in battle is yourself! Prepare yourself, you will soon be dead!"

_Next Time: A Hero Years in the Making_


	6. Luigi Chapter 3

**Luigi III: The Respect of a Hero**

The time? Late into the night. The location? Sarassaland. The combatants? Tatanga and Luigi, who has disguised himself as Mario to trick the alien conqueror and face the Mario-like robot he had created. The spectators? Lieutenant Gemini of the M.S.I. and all the soldiers that had joined him in trying to defuse the hostage situation resulted from Tatanga's efforts to use the now on looking Princess Daisy as a means of luring the famous Hero of the Mushroom Kingdom out. Tatanga's Motives? To end the plumber's life and regain his lost honor with the help of a mysterious benefactor. The stakes? If Luigi fails, his cover will most certainly be blown and all of Sarassaland will perish thanks to the dome the alien conqueror has set up around the castle.

Luigi knows all these details, the thoughts reverberating inside of his mind and causing an immeasurable amount of stress as he engages Tatanga's unholy mechanical beast in single combat. He knows he cannot use his Thunderhand or green fire, for either technique will give away his identity. All he had was his fists and his jumps on him to take down a robot that is half the height of Princess Daisy's gargantuan castle. Not only that, but Luigi had to be careful when fighting the robot seeing as there were still some citizens trapped within the dome. With the robot's fist set ablaze all it would take is one swing to cause an unstoppable forest fire to be created. With fists clenched tight and his eyebrows arched like Mario would have his in the face of such a dangerous situation, Luigi leaps high into the air, guiding his body backwards above the trees to get to a more open space as Tatanga uses air propulsion jets on the bottom of the robot's "boots" to lift himself into the air and pursue 'Mario'.

The air from the jets strikes the ground, creating a powerful gust that spreads through the trees and pushes most of the leaves and branches away from the center of the robot's underside as it flies slowly in pursuit of its target. The man in green makes it to the golf course, apologizing to Daisy in his head as he sees the robot land and instantly aim his left hand at him, the flames extending past the palm until Tatanga cuts off the supply to allow a perfect fireball to be created that is roughly five times the size of Luigi himself. The man in green is forced to leap to the right to avoid incineration, but he still feels most of the heat coming from the fireball's impact along with the crimson glow of the crackling flames themselves as they burn along one of the course's fairways.

From there the man in green looks towards Tatanga's mech and continues to leap away from more fireballs, performing backflips and sideflips in order to dodge the scalding heat of the attacks until one fireball crashes into a water hazard and creates a massive plume of smoke almost instantly as all liquid is dried out of the miniature pond that obscures most of Luigi's vision. All he can see from his current standing point is the head of Tatanga's mech. It takes a few seconds, but the man in green sees another reddish glow coming from the center of the smoke veil and promptly leaps to the left to dodge it. He tumbles across the ground as he lands, but rises up into a strong charge towards the feet of the robot. He had finally decided to go on the offensive now that it would take more than a couple of seconds for the mech to adjust its arms and launch a fireball at him.

Tatanga catches 'Mario's' nimble movement towards the feet of his robot and promptly activates the propulsion system to try and escape the plumber in the skies. But he was too slow, and with a mighty leap Luigi lands on top of the right steel-toe of this goliath and begins to run towards the leg itself. The alien conqueror, with his mighty mech suspended in mid-air, operates the legs to try and throw 'Mario' off with a swing of the foot. Luigi falls onto his belly after the first lift, but secretly uses his Thunderhand to magnetize himself to the foot without Tatanga catching a glimpse of this as he furiously swings the foot up and down to try and shake the plumber off. The man in green hangs on for his life, his heart pounding in the heat of battle as he lifts his head up and pays attention to the motions of the foot.

He is waiting for just the right moment when he can let go and let the momentum of being flung carry him towards the head of the robot. Luigi waits two more seconds and lets go at the perfect time, and his body is launched towards the robotic Mario's face. He lands on the edge of the chin just barely, the eyes lowering to pay attention to the hero's sudden appearance as Tatanga catches a faded glimpse of 'Mario' and his eyes widen in fury since he didn't want him to get this close already. Luigi moves out of sight quickly though, for if the alien gets a good long look at him his cover will be blown. After dashing to the side of the chin the man in green leaps for the left eye and swings his fist at it, hitting the center so hard that the glass instantly shatters apart and robs Tatanga sight through that socket thanks to the glass shards that fly from the broken lens.

However, behind the lens lies a laser array system, which Tatanga slams his fist down on the button to activate and send a barrage of seething red beams at the man in green. One singes Luigi across the left shoulder, causing him to take notice of the weapon system and forcing him to leap back after he lands on the chin of the robot to avoid dealing with anymore of the searing pain. The man in green falls for a full thirty seconds before he lands, a ripple of pain pulsating through his bones and nerves as the crackle of his feet bones rings in his eardrums. He didn't prepare himself enough to reduce the damage from such a fall, and this was a blow that he couldn't afford to have on his body.

Looking up at the massive mechanical monster, the man in green frowns upon noticing the flames re-igniting around the hands, which signified the return of the dwarfing fireballs that Luigi would waste much energy trying to avoid. For this next assault, Luigi would aim for the flamethrowers on the palms, a feat that would require much careful maneuvering around the legs, waist and arms of this robotic brute in order to get the job done. But he didn't believe that he would fail in this endeavor, not when Daisy and the people of Sarassaland held so much trust towards his victory. He turned his head to the right and saw a speck of Daisy poking out of the broken window. The man in green imagined her smile as a means of motivation and then looked back at the robot, jumping forward before Tatanga launches a fireball his way.

The searing flames approach him, the brightness and heat bringing a sensation of blindness to Luigi's eyes as he quickly thrusts his fist at the front of the fireball, releasing his Thunderhand for just a second at such an intensity that the lightning overwhelms the fire and shatters it, the ensuing flurry of flames hiding the sparks the fill the air around him as the man in green continues to fly towards his destination. He lands at the bottom of the left leg, maintaining a powerful sprint thanks to his momentum that allows him to scale the side of the leg itself and eventually reach the backside where the alien conqueror wouldn't dare take his flamethrowers to in order to stop him. However, there was a secondary defense system installed that activates the moment 'Mario's' presence is felt on the metallic surface.

A series of circular compartments open up, from them emerging a bombardment of giant boomerang shaped missiles that launch themselves at the man in green, homing in on his location and forcing him to swerve left and right to dodge them while keeping his momentum up to maximum. However, as their names and likeliness would suggest, these missiles curve their flight and head back towards the man in green, their paths not as focused as before seeing as the closest missile passes by Luigi and causes him to tilt his head back and become aware of the remaining weapons. Now halfway up the backside, the man in green kicks himself off the metallic surface and thrusts his hands downward, unleashing a swift lightning bolt that strikes the boomerangs and short-circuits them to the point that they explode right below him, propelling him high enough into the air that he lands on the right shoulder of the goliath.

Through the cameras on the back, Tatanga observes 'Mario's' moves, realizing not long afterwards that the electricity was not something that the plumber he fought before had shown himself capable of using. Though a more observant being would have noted the problem here and done something about it, the alien conqueror lacked the knowledge about the differences between Mario and Luigi and chalked up these moves as a new technique that the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom had learned, which brought nothing but fury to his expression as he tightly clenched the control sticks of this mech and prepared his left hand to swat the pesky man straight off. Luigi feels the robot moving, his eyes pointed towards the left arm as it creaks up into the air and heads his way.

With the right eye still functional, the man in green knows that Tatanga is able to keep enough vision on him to swat him off if he doesn't move correctly towards the flamethrowers. Luigi also notes in his head as he leaps off of the shoulder to dodge the initial swat that it was odd that Tatanga hadn't noticed anything odd about his admittedly reckless use of the Thunderhand. The man in green lands on the upper arms, sliding down the metal plate as the alien conqueror uses his left hand to summon forth a fireball to try and incinerate the man in green, only for the momentum from his slide to allow him to perfectly dodge it and make his way to the wrist, where he finds the flamethrowers close by and readies his Thunderhand to disable them and use them in a chain reaction that would decimate the right arm completely.

However, the left hand proves persistent, and Luigi forgets about it just long enough for Tatanga to smirk brightly and whack the man in green straight off of the backhand of the right arm with one thrust of his control stick. Luigi goes flying through the air, his face at the front as he tries to flip himself around by fighting against the force applied against him. Though he was a hundred so feet away from the hand and rapidly going farther with each second, the man in green points his right pointer finger at the right hand of the monstrous Mario machine and fires a lightning bolt that strikes right through two outlets of the flamethrowers, the bolt piercing through enough of the circuitry that it begins to crackle and destroy itself from within, taking the flamethrowers and the entire right arm with them in a chain explosion that brightens the sunlight deprived Sarassaland with a spectacular display of pyrotechnics that ends with only a few thick wires dangling from the shoulder of Tatanga's mech with sparks crackling out of the ends.

The alien conqueror takes his left hand and tries to stuff the wires into the shoulder to avoid any further problems with this rather vulnerable point in his body, but he knows that he has lost most of his firepower with this one move of 'Mario's'. This enraged him immensely, making him believe that for all of his efforts and planning he still isn't capable of defeating the Hero of the Mushroom Kingdom. In this rage he forgets the one who had helped him even get this far, and further descent into madness causes his pupils to retract into his head as he laughs maniacally in such a way that it echoes through the mic he has placed in front of him and even reaches the ears of those outside the dome. It was a haunting laugh, and one that would not be so easily forgotten anytime soon by the frightened populace.

Luigi, who had just fallen back first against the ground near the eastern end of the dome, manages to hear Tatanga's insane laughter and gets a rather foreboding feeling in his gut as he widens his eyes in worry and tries to bring himself to his a feet, an effort that proves rather difficult considering the damage sustained to his leg bones earlier along with the shocking blow to his spine brought on by his recent impact with the ground. But still he rises, the trees of the forest surrounding him just enough that he can only peek through the canopy and see the head and left arm of Tatanga's mech, watching as the arm is swiftly pointed at the castle that Daisy is currently occupying herself inside of. With his weapon glowing brightly and flames growing with each passing second, Tatanga boldly declares in a tone of echoing madness "COME OUT MARIO! IF YOU DO NOT FACE ME NOW AND DIE AT MY HANDS, THEN I WILL INCINERATE PRINCESS DAISY WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE! DO NOT TEST ME HERO OF THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM, I HOLD ALL THE CARDS!"

It was far too clear that even with his madness, Tatanga believed that he could still claim victory over 'Mario', not even knowing that at the moment he was facing his brother, who in his mind was hearing the echoes of the alien conqueror rage-induced threats, his knuckles cracking tightly as he calmly begins to close his eyelids and think to himself "No Tatanga…There's one card you don't hold in your hand…" Luigi knew what he had to do in order to take down the alien conqueror and save Sarassaland, and he wasn't going to show reluctance or cowardice now. Little did Tatanga know, he awakened the heart of the bravest man all of Plit had known, even if the man in green himself didn't know that he was capable of such courage…And through his courage, was born the heart of a hero.

From the confines of his cockpit, Tatanga salivated like a mad dog, his palpitating laughter and rapidly beating heart distracting him to the point that he barely notices the events unfolding outside until a piercing, golden light sprung to existence to the left of him, at which point he merely turned towards the spectacle with eyes barely flinching in the face of such awe-inspiring light. From the golden pillar of holy light sparkling at the east edge of the dome emerged a series of rejuvenating electric sparks that heal the scarred landscape, even going as far as to slowly piece together the window Daisy was poking her head through, forcing her to step back in shock as she mutters to herself "L-Luigi?" As though she didn't expect the man in green to release this type of power.

Tatanga is utterly bewildered by this display of might, on the other hand, and he furiously turns the left hand of his mecha towards the golden pillar of light and exclaims without any concern for his life "YOU CANNOT ESCAPE ME MARIO!" With a gigantic slamming of the caution button in the center of the control sticks that breaks the button apart, Tatanga causes the klaxons buried within the chest of his robot to activate as the nuclear reactor he drew energy from for his flames begins to pour all of its power into the remaining flamethrower, turning the crimson fireball into a glowing, stabilized miniature sun that launches itself straight towards the pillar of light. Within seconds of emerging in clothes of pearly white and golden, Luigi widens his eyelids open and charges forward, covering half of the distance between himself and Tatanga in a blink of the eye and intercepting the miniature sun with his right hand.

With the nearly invisible visages of the Star Spirits floating around him in a ring, Luigi pours the holy energy granted to him into the sun, filling it immensely to the point that the sun disappears in a sparkling flurry of bright lights, which brightens the dismal atmosphere cast by Tatanga's dome and blinds the enraged alien to the point that he is unable to watch as Luigi gathers the lights into his right fist and holds it beside his body, a gigantic glowing effigy of his body forming around him as millions of volts of electricity surge through him. With one charge through the air that creates a streak of green lightning that scars the sky for three seconds, the effigy itself punches the face of the Mario robot so hard that the shockwave of power spreads through the dome, creating a powerful gale that nearly rips all of the trees from the ground.

After the punch connects and the effigy starts to fade into oblivion, a hundred other streaks of green lightning pierce themselves into the Mario robot from all sorts of directions, causing a chain reaction of explosions throughout that engulf every single inch of the mechanical monstrosity as it falls backwards through the air from the force of Luigi's mighty series of punches. Speaking of the man in green, after the last punch he had flown into the cockpit of Tatanga's ship and ripped the alien straight out of his chair, carrying him to safety on stable ground far off from the scene of the mech's destruction. He had grabbed the alien conqueror by the collar, planting his body straight against the ground as he does nothing but laugh maniacally as Luigi looks back to confirm that the robot is completely destroyed.

After seeing the final explosion brightly glowing from afar, the man in green turns back towards a maddened Tatanga and reverts to the basic red and blue clothing of his brother, his eyes glaring towards the alien's blank gaze as he continues to laugh and proclaims between each breath "I am not afraid of you Mario! I can still destroy you and everything you love with this dome! YOU LOSE, YOU ARE NOTHING COMPARED TO ME MARIO!" Tatanga had gone completely suicidal at this point, and he was far too willing to take everything in Sarassaland out with him in his final act of desperation. Luigi, however, quickly looked at the foolish shell of a conqueror and used his left hand to pull Mario's cap right off, revealing to him his true face and hair to Tatanga while proclaiming in a bitter tone "Guess what though? I'm not Mario! You didn't lose to my brother, you lost to a simple 'second-rate sidekick'."

The man in green pounded in the truth behind Tatanga's defeat into the alien's head so hard that he quickly froze with eyes widened blankly in shock, his body going into a near-comatose state as he stares into the eyes of the one who defeated him and finds it all-too difficult to believe that he was bested by this filth. And in his moment of disbelieving stiffness, Tatanga's mind drops its focus on the dome, his broken connection causing the dome to slowly fade away from the bottom upward until the clear night sky is visible to all those who were once trapped underneath it. Luigi lifts himself up off the ground, removing his hand from the alien conqueror's collar as he stares up into the starry sky and smiles, his victory resting merrily on his heart now that everyone was safe from harm.

…A few minutes later, Gemini and a few M.S.I. troops descend from their aerial ships, walking over to the site of Tatanga's certain defeat to pick him up and carry his body away, with Princess Daisy standing by Luigi's side as the man in green lets out a relaxed sigh and says to her "I'm glad that's over with…" Wrapping her arms around the man in green's body so tightly that his cheeks become flushed with red in an embarrassed instant. Daisy sings her praises to the man in green, thanking him immensely for what he had done today as Gemini looks on with a sly, humored smirk on his face, which causes Luigi to angrily react to him with a stutter in his voice "W-What's the big idea Gemini?! You want to start something?" He was speaking with a little too much gusto, possibly caused by the courage he gained just a few minutes ago.

Meanwhile, as the heroes celebrate the defeat of Tatanga, the alien conqueror hangs limp above the ground, his body being carried along by the arms thanks to two Boo soldiers. His lips stutter, as rational thought begins to creep inside of his mind as he realizes the implications of his defeat at the hands of Luigi. "I…I lost to that two-bit brother…I didn't stand a chance of beating Mario if his weak little brother trashed my mech so easily…I'm…I'm a failure as a conqueror…But…But…But…But…" This mantra of insanity loops inside of his head ad infinitum as he starts to scowl angrily, regaining his strength in an instance and tearing himself out of the grasp of the Boos as he quickly turns towards Luigi and Daisy and pulls out his ray gun from his holster.

"PERISH LIKE THE SCUM YOU ARE!" He proclaims, as he pulls the trigger once before the Boos jumps on him to restrain him. The laser flies through the air, its current path meaning that it would strike through the chests of Luigi and Daisy and surely end their lives. Knowing this, the man in green quickly pushes the Princess onto her back in front of him, in the urgency of this moment failing to protect himself as the laser pierces through his chest and causes him to become stiff with pain. His vision instantly blurs, slowly fading away as he hears the panicked cries of Princess Daisy in his eardrums while Gemini furiously charges at Tatanga with trident drawn, a sharp, impaling noise being the last thing the man in green hears as he feels himself slipping into unconsciousness.

But suddenly, he wakes back up, his eyes greeted by bright yet welcoming eyes in the ceiling that causes him to blink a few times before his vision adjusts to the light. He feels a soreness coming from his chest almost immediately, one so painful that he finds it hard to breath as a raspy cough emerges from his lips, signifying to him that he is at the very least alive if rather uncertain about his condition. He hears a surprised gasp to the left of him, and turns to find Princess Daisy sitting down in a chair beside him in her normal royal garb. On his body is his regular clothing, which was obviously put on him while he was unconscious. Standing up and running beside his bed, a teary-eyed Daisy pouts and tries to hard her sadness with an expression of anger, an act that fails spectacularly as she breaks down and says with her hands pressed against the side of Luigi's bed "YOU IDIOT!"

The man in green feels the weight of his bed swaying to the left for just a moment, which wakes him up a little more and causes him to focus more on Princess Daisy as she looks at him with tears dripping down her cheeks as she goes on to say "What makes you think you have the right to even attempt to sacrifice your life for my sake?! You should be thankful that we were able to get you to our hospitals right away or you may have never been allowed to breath ever again! …DON'T EVER PUT ME THROUGH THIS TYPE OF STRESS EVER AGAIN!" As Daisy berates Luigi for his brave if rather fool hearted sacrifice, the man in green turns his head towards the calendar and notes that it has been three days since Tatanga was defeated.

Turning back to the Princess as she clenches his bed sheet with both hands and grits her teeth while sobbing uncontrollably, Luigi asks her in a raspy voice "Y-You were…At my bedside the whole time…Weren't you?" Daisy widens her teary eyes, lifting her head up to look over at Luigi with a merry smile on her face at the fact that he is able to speak, even if it was in a weak tone. "T-Thank you…" The man in green states, cracking a smile as wide as his condition will allow him before Daisy kneels beside him and wraps her arms around his face, barely exerting any effort as she keeps him in a warm embrace.

From beside the door to Luigi's room, Gemini observes the behavior of the two humans, smiling happily at the fact that the man in green was alive and that he had someone beside him to care for him as he recovers. Seeing as he was no longer needed here, the Koopa Lieutenant turns around and starts to depart from the hospital, only to be interrupted by an abrupt ringing coming from within his shell. It was the communicator that Commander Alpha had given him before he suddenly departed, and with a swift draw of it from his shell as he secludes himself in a dark, vacant hallway he answers the device's call and holds it up beside the right side of his face. "Where have you been Commander?" The Lieutenant promptly and bluntly asks.

"_Here, there and everywhere else in between Gemini…I did manage to catch wind of the hostage situation in Sarassaland though. Did everything turn out ok?" _The Commander's voice was a little hard to hear, more than likely because of the reception in this building, but Gemini still caught enough to be able to answer him with "Luigi got harmed by Tatanga at the end of the scuffle but he's healing up in the hospital now…He'll be fine within a week or so. As far as Tatanga goes…I had no choice but to execute him." _"…Gemini…" _Alpha responds to the Koopa's reluctance in a firm, obviously disappointed tone of voice before the Lieutenant points out "I know you disapprove of my decision Commander…But Tatanga was far too dangerous to keep on-world, and we shouldn't have to follow the rules for otherworldly creatures, right?"

"…_That type of thinking will eventually transform you into an extremist, Gemini. I will forgive you just once for killing Tatanga, but I do wish that you would consult me the next time such a matter occurs." _"…If I must be fair Commander, there is a particular reason I chose to swiftly execute

Tatanga beside the fact that he harmed Luigi." _"Yes?" _Alpha responds with intrigue in his voice. The Lieutenant then says to Alpha with a bit of hesitation lying on his mind "…Tatanga summoned forth a dome around Sarassaland that trapped everyone inside. The news didn't record this since it was dispelled rather quickly, but my crew managed to scan the dome before it vanished and we found that it was created through the use of dark magic…And not just any dark magic. Its energy signature was perfectly identical to the type of magic Cackletta used in the past."

_Next Story: Mallow and the Hidden Treasure (To be posted after the Metroid Story of Part 4...)_


End file.
